


The Unicorn Hunt

by prettybadmagic



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with resolution, Dubious Consent, F/M, Heavy Petting, Loss of Virginity, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Praise Kink, Rape/Non-con Elements, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Tension, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:02:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27289840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettybadmagic/pseuds/prettybadmagic
Summary: Sansa's maidenhead is the perfect unicorn bait.But after Joffrey makes his kill, he has no use for it. So he sends Sansa into the woods and offers her up to the first of his men who finds her.One man is hungrier than the rest. But will he win his dinner?
Relationships: Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark
Comments: 113
Kudos: 290





	1. The Hunt

**Author's Note:**

> Hi y'all,
> 
> To start, I want to give a major content warning for rape and non-consensual sexual acts. **None of the sex in the first chapter is consensual** , so please be cautious and act in your best interest. That said, it's not a worst case scenario. 
> 
> This story is set in a book AU where theoretically Joffrey has the time/safety to hunt in the Kingswood after Sansa's flowering, which means everything in ACoK but the Blackwater "fiasco" has happened between Sandor and Sansa. Age isn't mentioned; she's aged up. Overall, I think of this as an alternative reckoning to the Blackwater, heavily steeped in canon. I wrote this story to explore character and pacing. It's dark, but has resolve. 
> 
> I offer [ CocoRosie - Honey or Tar ](https://youtu.be/oVRCRP6KewM) as thematic listening. 
> 
> **Update** : I wrote this as a one-shot, no intent to continue, but I ended up making it a five chapter series. Read however you like; warnings are updated each chapter. My next project is Another Nova, the sequel to Singing at the Stars. I plan to start posting it in December. Follow me on Twitter @_prettybadmagic for more regular updates. I'm always up to no good. 
> 
> Enjoy.

The blood is blue-black on Sansa's white silks. They don't sing about this part in songs: the part where a quarrel replaces an eye, and the liquid that spills out sparkles like sapphire in the soft forest light. 

Joffrey shouldn't have hit its eye, but it doesn't matter now. 

The head is heavy in her lap and she's glad she hasn't eaten for the entirety of the hunt, otherwise her breakfast would have landed in the unicorn's mane. Her hand is there now, trickling through the translucent strands like spun sugar. _I'm sorry_ , she says soundlessly, _it was either you or me._

And then, 

_I wish it were me._

The squires pull the beast off Sansa, but they don't bother to help her up from her seat of damp leaves. There is commotion: the thumping of hooves, the clatter of steel, Joffrey's shouting. Sansa has trained herself to ignore his shouts, unless they are accompanied by strikes. When he puts his freshly wound crossbow in her face, she listens. 

"I have a new game to play." 

Even his hunting greens are trimmed in gold, as if too much stag would kill him. His ruby-encrusted crown sits crooked on his curls. 

"Mother says I can't have your maidenhead,” he fusses like a child. “But I have my unicorn now, and she didn't mention anything about the rest of my men.” When his lips curl to a full-fanged smile, he’s no longer a boy. He’s a monster grown.  
  
“We're going to have a maiden hunt." 

He presses the loaded weapon into the softness of Sansa's belly, and she meets him with watery eyes. She's not strong enough to hide her anger, not now. 

"I'll give you an hour to run, shewolf." Then, to the rest of the party, "Whoever finds her first will win her maidenhead. You bring her to me, and we'll have a little show with our supper." 

No one makes a sound until Joffrey kicks her square in the chest. "Run along, you little wolfling bitch. Run fast. My men are quite hungry." 

Sansa is up, then. Her legs carry her away, faster than her thoughts. _Go, go, go_ , is all she'll allow herself, as if it will drown out her fear. Her fear is her heartbeat, and her heartbeat is rapid thunder. 

It isn't long until the pain of Joffrey's kick blossoms like a black flower beneath her ribs, her lungs stuck through with its thorns. Each breath is agony. Then the forest gets greedy with her. Branches nip at her dress. Shrubs come for her ankles. Roots reach for her flimsy silken slippers, and they win. Sansa crashes down into a bed of mud. For a minute, she likes it there. It's soft, warm from the late autumn sun, and her body can finally rest. 

But the stabbing fear returns not long after. 

Sansa stumbles out of bed, her entire front side caked in dark mud, plaits included. She wipes only her eyes and mouth before she moves on. Then she starts asking herself questions. _Why?_ is the first one. _Why do I even bother?_ She quickly runs through the list of men that had come on the hunt, trying to determine the worst possible fate. 

The answer is so obvious: Trant. And after that Boros, then Ser Balon, and finally, the Hound. 

_The Hound is my best option._

Had things truly sunk so low? 

The answer is yes, but Sansa doesn't necessarily have time to stew in her sorrows. She won't even know when the hour is up, so she runs, and runs, and runs. Joff will keep his word. Her maidenhead will disappear tonight. Perhaps things will be easier, then. 

Perhaps she'll be ignored, like Lollys. 

But Lollys isn't ignored, she's laughed at by the whole of court. 

That's when Sansa decides to stop thinking again. 

She stays upright for a while, but there comes a time when her body simply won't cooperate. Her legs have turned wooden and they burn like kindling. The sun is setting in fiery pinks and oranges, and it won't be long before the woods are full dark. Where will she go, then? 

When Sansa spots a hollow in the sprawling roots of an oak tree, concealed just-so by a blackberry bush, she seizes the opportunity. She's small game after all, and she'll do better to hide. The brambles snag her skirts as she crawls through, ripping a good six inches off her hem. She collapses inside the hollow, tattered, bruised, frosted in black dirt and blood. 

Finally, she can cry. She curls into a tight ball, cradled ever so gently by moist decaying earth. Her tears clean the mud from her face. She's careful not to sob, of course, so she shivers in place. She likes the hollow, she decides. Maybe the men won't find her. Maybe Joffrey will get too hungry and give up. Then Sansa can live in the woods, surrender to Stannis, and pray he wants to keep her whole. 

A cluster of mushrooms share her new home—speckled white with blood red gills. _Are these the poisonous kind?_ She plucks them up regardless and clutches them to her breast like a noxious babe. _Just in case_. 

Just in case Trant finds her first. 

Or Boros, or Balon, or the Hound. 

Death would be a better fate than any of them. 

The sky is black when the thumping of hooves sounds out at a distance. At first they're fast, but then they slow. A searching pace. Then they come close. 

And then they stop entirely. 

When heavy boots land on the other side of the bramble, Sansa's bladder lets go. She doesn't even care, because a worse fate awaits her than a soiled gown. Now she sobs. 

"It's time to come out, little bird." 

The words are so gentle that the next wail sticks in her throat. _The Hound_.

She doesn't move. 

_The Hound won_. _He'll have my maidenhead_.

The sobs come back, and she's screaming by the time a fierce arm hooks around her waist and rips her from the hollow. She thrashes and kicks, but the Hound is much stronger. She's nothing more than a scared rabbit to him. Worse, she's a _little bird_. She'll be in his jaws soon enough. 

"Don't make it harder than it has to be, girl." 

He's grappling with her. Sansa decides to put up a fight, because he's being too gentle again. None of his touches will leave a mark. She bites down on his bare hand, hoping it _will_ leave a mark. He howls and drops her to the ground. Her ribs land on a gnarled root, and it poaches the air straight from her lungs. 

She gives up, then. 

The Hound scoops her like a ragdoll into his big arms. He mutters a fluent string of curses under his breath as he carries her to his stallion, but his harsh words aren't directed at her. They're for the king. 

There isn't enough space for the two of them in the saddle. The Hound holds her tight between the reins, pressed against his smooth leather jerkin. Somehow Sansa's sobs turn to sniffles. She listens to his heart and she's surprised at how fast it beats. _He's afraid too_ , she thinks momentarily. 

_Or he's excited_. 

Sansa whimpers, then realizes she still has a mushroom curled tightly in her fist. This is her last chance. But as soon as she opens up and brings the poison to her lips, the Hound tears it away. It disappears into the darkness behind them. 

"Not today, little bird," is all he says. The way he breathes makes it seem like there's more coming, but he stays quiet. He somehow knows the way back to the lodge. 

Sansa doesn't care. They could end up in Dorne, it didn't matter. As she lays there, limp in the Hound's lap, she makes up her mind. She won't be a frightened rabbit, she'll be a ragdoll. She'll lay perfectly still and accept her fate. She'll do as he told her. 

She'll make it easy for herself. 

The hunting lodge is a great stone monster lanced with heavy timber spears. Torch flame licks at Sansa's puffy face as they draw closer, and she buries herself deeper against Sandor's rigid chest. He's still breathing funny, like he might say something, but he never does. 

He drops from the saddle and carries Sansa inside. 

Joffrey waits for them at the head of the table, on his stupid oak chair draped in musky boarskin. His crossbow is in his lap, ready. No else is there but the unicorn. It sits in the center of the long trestle table, quarrel in eye, white coat crusted in black blood. Overflowing platters of meat lay untouched. Everything buzzes with flies. 

When Joffrey perks up at his post, he sounds more petulant than angry. 

"Finally," he moans. "I was worried I'd have to dismiss the whole sorry lot of you." 

The other men have followed them, born from the shadows in the woods. They file in and take their places on the benches. The Hound drops Sansa at the far edge of the table, but she's too weak to hold herself upright, and ends up slumping back against his chest. She's safe when she's here. 

"I'll have what's mine, then," the Hound rasps. 

Sansa regrets her sympathy immediately when he rips her bodice open, spraying the floor with all the pretty pearls that had been stitched into the silk. She wants to weep again but the tears won't come. _Be a ragdoll_ , she reminds herself. 

So she doesn't make a single sound as he hitches her stained skirts around her hips. The men are silent, and so is Joffrey. They might have been eating, or simply watching, but Sansa's eyes are on the Hound. He fumbles with his belt, then the laces of his breeches, and then he's holding himself. This time a whimper crests her lips, despite how fiercely she tries to bite it back. She has never seen a man's staff before, not one so swollen, red, and angry. 

And big. It's as big as the rest of him. She should have guessed. 

His eyes are the only light as he stoops over her, a great dark hound come to devour his little bird. His half-burnt lips drop to her ear. 

"When I push into you, scream. Do you understand, little bird? Can you manage that much?" 

She doesn't answer, because she doesn't know what he's asking. If he puts himself inside her he'll rip her in two, and surely she'll scream at that, no matter what promises she's made for herself. 

The Hound lingers, his breath hot against the nape of her neck. It's shallow, the kind of breath you use to gather courage. He must have found it, because he grabs one of her plaits, close enough to her scalp to command her entire head. 

Then he thrusts. 

But there's no pain. 

His length slides beneath her buttocks like a warm snake, and there's no pain. Was that all it meant to lose your maidenhead? 

The Hound growls—it's a warning. 

With the next thrust, he yanks her plait fierce enough to rip it clean off, and this time, she screams. She screams so loud the aching flower in her chest blooms all over again. 

"Good," he whispers. "That's a good little bird." 

_Why was that good?_ she wonders. There is nothing good about this, about being bare chested before half the Kingsguard in soiled silks, with a disfigured giant between her legs, _deflowering her._

But hurting her scalp, mostly. 

He moves again, pulls again, and Sansa screams again. "Stop," she whines. It's a ghost of a word. 

"I'll stop if you learn to scream proper,” he snarls at her ear. “It's supposed to hurt. He wants it to hurt. You put on a sweet show, and it'll be over that much sooner." 

She meets his eyes for a split second. There's too much behind them for Sansa to comprehend—more than anger and lust. She knows those well, and it isn't those. The way the Hound looks at her now is the same way he looked on her during the riot, when he came tearing through the crowd to rescue her. It's a wicked desperation. 

Longing, tinged with greed. 

He wants her to be a rabbit. He's begging her. 

So Sansa nods. 

When his manhood works it way behind her buttocks again, she wails and clutches at his jerkin. He makes a satisfied grunt, and his grip on her hair loosens. It's a reward. 

Sansa learns fast, despite what the Queen says of her. So while the Hound goes on plunging beneath her, huffing and panting at her neck, she puts on a show. _It's supposed to hurt_. She knew that, which is why she was surprised at first. But she learns to pretend. 

She screams and whines until her throat bloodies. She lashes out at the Hound, twisting fistfuls of supple leather, striking the stone-hard muscles below. His hand is still in her hair, but it's soft there. It steadies her, so his thrusts don't launch her across the table. 

They get closer as he works, somehow. His arm braces along her spine, keeps her upright, forces her body against his. Something about his chest is comforting. When her cheek is flush against it, she can feel his heart again. She can smell the sour spice that clings to his armpits. All his heavy muscles are taut around her. He could certainly crush her. 

So why doesn't he? 

All that brute strength at his disposal, and he treats Sansa like the finest porcelain. _He's never struck me_ , she thinks between gasps. _But why?_ She shouldn't look up at him, but she does. His ugliness is the first thing she notices, but his warped face is tight with restraint. _He doesn't want to hurt me._

_Why?_

He has no reason to be gentle. He has every right to plunder her virtue, as if she were nothing but a Flea Bottom whore. 

His thrusts come faster suddenly. "Little bird," he says under his breath. "Fuck, little bird," and she may have even heard a fraught, "Please," but the rest of it is a jumble. She receives all his words as best she can, with extra cries and the kind of nervous trembling that prey ought to do. She wonders how it feels for him. How much he enjoys slipping from beneath her. How diligently he searched for her in the Kingswood to win his dinner, her. 

Sandor isn't a terrible lover, despite being a beast. 

He truly is her best option. 

Then he's gone from her. He drops her to the table, and with a shallow grunt, empties warm seed all over her flower. She doesn't like his face as he does it, or the way his hand chokes his own manhood, and she starts to despise him again. _He ruined me_ , and shame topples down on her like heavy fruit from high branches. _Caught with juice running down my chin._

And she is. Next thing she knows, the Hound spins her around. Then she's staring down the table, directly into the unicorn's dead black eyes, and the Hound isn't even finished. He pries her thighs apart to show Joffrey everything. 

"There," he spits. "It's done." 

Joffrey doesn't say anything at first. His pouty lips are twisted into a grimace, his emerald eyes restless as they take in Sansa's shame, all her wanton juices. She hates all of them now. Her eyes grow hot with tears again, and she wishes she had eaten those mushrooms when she'd had the chance. 

"I suppose—" Joffrey starts, shifting in his oaken throne. "I suppose I ought to have her as well. King's rights. Mother said I couldn't take her maidenhead, but she's no maiden now. Yes, I should have her too." 

" _No._ " 

The word stings like Valyrian steel. The Hound puts Sansa back together, slides her to him. "Look at her. She's a mess.” He lifts all her tattered scraps and loose ends to prove his point. “Covered in mud, and she's pissed herself too. Stinks something fierce. All sour with fright. No, a king can do much better than this. Have her washed up and take her on the morrow, but you deserve much better than a dog's leftovers, Your Grace." 

The air is ice until Joffrey clears his throat. "You're a clever dog, aren't you. Well go on, take your bone and clean her up for me. You'll watch her tonight and see that no one else takes a bite. I'll have her in the morning before we set out. Put her in something pretty for me."

"As you wish, Your Grace." 

"Good boy. Everyone else, eat." 

The eyes go away from her, all but the Hound's. He undoes his white cloak and wraps it around Sansa's shoulders. He's soft when he says, "Come on, little bird, the show's over," then he bundles her up in his arms, and carries her down the corridor. 

The room he takes her to is small, and he is so, so big. It’s more than his height, more than his great swollen muscles, it’s the very air around him. Dark as his mottled skin, with a stench like a knight who’s just fought a battle. 

He’s not even a knight. 

He _hates_ knights. 

Gregor is a knight. 

It doesn’t matter. The Hound commands all the air inside, and Sansa suffocates. 

It’s only when he says, “Wash yourself, girl,” that she realizes he’s been staring at her, because of course he has. Perhaps it's his steel eyes that needle away her breath. She doesn't want to move. She stands there, a defiled ragdoll. 

"Do you want me to do it for you, is that it?" 

It only takes one broad step before he's in her face again. He snatches up the pitcher from the washstand and lets it hover above her head. When Sansa finds words, they aren't the ones she expects. 

"You should be ashamed of yourself."

It's enough to make him yield. He drops the pitcher and it shatters in the rushes, five clean pieces. Sansa doesn't flinch. She's even stopped shivering. 

The Hound mutters again, rubs at his blackened jaw. He can't seem to stand still, even though there's hardly anywhere for him to go. He talks to the walls. " _Ashamed_ she says. You should be thanking me, girl. You should be on your pretty knees, kissing my fucking boots. I _spared_ you."

"S-spared?"

"Yes, little bird." He turns to her now, eyes glinting in the torchlight. "I spared your pretty little maidenhead." He fingers his cloak, the part Sansa has coiled up to her chin. "We could go hunt another precious unicorn right now, and it would come to you all the same. I wouldn't kill this one either. We could just give it a sweet kiss and send it on its way." 

Gooseprickles rise up on her skin. She can't look away from the rough hand idling at her cheek. "But _why_?" she asks. 

The Hound laughs. It cuts deep, and Sansa stumbles back against the cool stone wall. 

"Why?" he mocks. "What, were you hoping for Trant? Or perhaps the noble Ser Boros? Seven fucking hells. Gods only know what one of those gallant cunts would have done with you." 

He evaded her question, but Sansa can't think beyond the anger that simmers so readily beneath his ruined skin. It's breached the surface, and she's frightened. 

Eventually the Hound quiets. "Take off your gown, girl. Whatever’s left of it. I'll go get you another." With a cursory glance to the broken pitcher he adds, "I'll get another one of those, too." 

Sansa stays frozen in place. She does nothing while he's gone, not even rejoice in her unscathed maidenhead. She doesn't believe him. He had no reason to spare her, even if he truly did. 

_But_ _a dog never lies_.

He comes back with a bundle of wool under one arm and a wooden bucket in the other. There's silence between them as they both acknowledge the fact that Sansa has ignored his commands to strip, again. She matches his stare this time. She can be angry too, just as angry as him. She decides she isn't a rabbit or a ragdoll. 

She's a wolf. 

The cloak drops to the ground. With one tug to her girdle, the rest of her clothing follows. 

Sansa picks up the rag from the washstand and goes to the bucket. Sandor hasn't even dropped it. The handle is tight in his fist, the water trembling almost imperceptibly. _Good._ She doesn't want him to move. He's dangerous when he moves. She begins to wash herself, because what does it matter? 

He’s seen her change before. He's seen her breasts. He's held her when she was wearing naught but a wisp of silk. 

And now, he's fucked her. 

His monstrous man's staff has been inside her, one way or another. His seed is sticky between her legs. 

So her nakedness is laughably tame by comparison. Better yet, the water feels good on her dirty skin. Sansa pretends Sandor isn't even there as she scrubs away all her sorrow. When the mud and soil are gone from her body, she undoes her plaits. 

That's when Sandor drops the bucket with a slosh. He backs against the door. 

Clearing the grime from her hair is an undertaking, but Sansa is in no hurry. She uses her fingers, the rag, and an occasional dunk in the bucket to get all of it off. She's happy when it's gone. Joffrey wants her clean, but she wants to be clean too. She doesn't want the Hound to call her sour ever again. 

When she looks back up, she notices straight away—he's hard. Sadly, she knows what's below his belt. She knows how big and angry it gets. 

_When it wants something._

But Sansa is a wolf now, so she has no choice but to face him. 

"Can I have my dress?" she asks, putting her bare toes between his boots. " _Please._ "

There isn't even a struggle. The Hound surrenders the garment without a word, and Sansa pulls it over her head. It's an underkirtle, a boring dun thing, but it's warm. It won't be nearly pretty enough for Joffrey, but the Hound likes it. 

Sansa's eyes stick to the stiffness in his breeches. She's forgotten how to be afraid. She's forgotten that he could tear her limb from limb, and not think twice. _He loves killing_.

But he never said anything about raping, not that Sansa could remember. 

"You wanted me more than the other men." The words are not her own; they belong to the wolf. Sandor shifts, but says nothing. "You always have. You're always watching me. You're always _there._ But you never struck me. Why?" 

"I'm on the Kingsguard, girl. It's my duty to watch you." 

Is this what it's like to stalk prey? She has Sandor pinned in place. There isn't any room to step closer, but she does. He had no right to call her sour, because he smells much worse. His breath reeks of wine, and the odor that wafts from beneath his tunic is like ripe garlic. It's not truly garlic, it's just the way grown men smell after a day's ride. Even father had smelled that way, sometimes. 

Thinking of father makes the smell less bad. Suddenly Sansa is on his saddle, tucked in his arms, breathing him in on a warm summer evening. _It's a welcome scent_ , she realizes. _It smells like coming home._

Now she's scared herself. Her heart patters against her sore ribs. Still, her fingers reach out. She doesn't know why. Maybe she wants to take it back, whatever he took from her out there on the table, with Joffrey, the unicorn, and a half dozen rotten men looking on. 

She doesn't get far. 

The Hound erupts. The roar comes first, then the snapping up of her wrists, and then he throws her onto the straw pallet so forcefully she severs the tip of her own tongue. He's fuming when he stands over her. His burns smolder like hot coal. 

"What are you playing at, little bird?" She scrambles to the far corner of the bed, but the Hound is much bigger. His body drops down on her like a dungeon. "You want more of me, is that it? Got a taste of something you liked?" 

He thrusts a hand up her skirts; he's coming for her. Sansa mewls. "You won't." It's almost a sob. Tears sit heavy behind her eyes. "You won't hurt me." 

"Like hell I won't. It doesn't matter what I do now. They all think I've had you." A coarse palm slides up her thigh. "My seed is right here, little bird." 

She gasps.

His thumb is there, on her flower, _in_ it. Fire bursts inside of her. 

"You won't," is all she can get out. Her throat has closed up. She tries to close her thighs too, but only succeeds in trapping the Hound's hand inside her. She needs him gone, desperately, but she's too weak to fight. Her limbs are soggy straw. 

She gives him all she has left. It's a mote of a whisper. 

"You care for me." 

It works. 

He recedes, but he's still angry. He kicks the over the bucket with a grunt and sits on it, as far away from the bed as their cramped quarters allow. Sansa uses all her strength to pull her knees to her chin. She has played with fire, and gotten burned. 

But she has learned something, too. 

He didn't lie. 

She knows the fire between her legs. It bloomed alongside her moonblood. Sometimes she can’t distinguish the two. They both ache from somewhere deep inside her, and that’s just it. The Hound wasn’t deep inside her. 

He spared her. 

That's the shock that keeps her lips tight, her arms locked firmly around her knees. _He spared me_. It’s a silent exultation. She has the urge to run back into the woods to find another unicorn and prove it to herself. She stays in place, because she thinks of something else. 

_Why?_

Neither the rabbit or the ragdoll know the answer. She’s a Stark when she whispers, “You care for me. I remember everything—the day on the parapets, the courtyard, the riot. You told me of your scars, even though no one else knows, because you care for me. You always have. Since—since—” _The day you first caught me,_ but she doesn’t say that, because it’s a terrifying realization. So she simply repeats, “ _You care for me._ ” 

She should have expected the bitter laughter that erupts from the corner of the room. Its savagery brings Sansa back to life. She peels up from the bed to watch him, eyes wide. She has never seen anything so fearsome as the Hound when he laughs. It’s a barking laugh, cruel and rough as a saw on stone. His eyes aren’t happy when he does it. He looks as though he could kill. 

“You’re awful.” 

She’s told him before, but she needs to say it again. At the very least, he goes quiet. 

“That I am, little bird. What do you expect of me? Poetry? Song? I’m no Florian. I’m not a fucking knight. Bugger that. You’ll have no pretty little confessions from me.” 

She feels stupid, because maybe that is what she expects. _Still_. After all her time trapped at the Red Keep, she still wants her Symeon Star-Eyes. But the Hound isn't Symeon. It’s enough to break her. 

“Gods,” she laments, her voice a crag. “The Queen is right. I’m so _stupid._ I’m stupid and I hate it. I hate all of you, every single Lannister, and you especially. You’re the worst, because you don’t even have the courage to hit me. You’re a terrible dog. You can’t pretend otherwise. _I remember._ The day he had me stripped and beaten, I remember what you said. _Enough_. That’s what you said, in front of everyone, in front of the king. _Enough_. That’s not how dogs behave. You’re supposed to obey, you know that? You’re a coward, and worse. You’re a _liar_. You told me dogs don’t lie, but you lied to the king. You pretended to take me in front of everyone, but you didn’t. And now you’re lying to me, the same way you always do—by laughing, and cursing, and never answering my questions, not truly. You’re a liar.” 

The Hound sits unmoving on his too-small perch, a white knuckle grip on his knees. “Truth, is it? That’s what you’re after?” 

His stare is a lance, and she’s a quintain. 

Slowly, Sansa nods. 

“I’ve told you the truth plenty of times, but you never listen. There is nothing good in life, nothing pure, or pretty, or sweet. Not for me, and not for you. Knights are killers. Kings are monsters, and queens their courtesans. I’m no better or worse than the rest of them, and you’d best remember that." 

Sansa frowns, because he’s done it again. He avoided her question, and they both know. She sees it in his face. His mouth twitches, and his grey eyes turn glassy. Dense columns of muscle bulge from his neck. 

He can’t hold himself still.

He’s _shaking_. 

Sansa has him. 

“Why did you lie?” 

The question lands softly. Sansa scoots to the edge of the bed. A delicate threat. 

She’s a gentle girl, so she repeats herself. “Why did you spare me?” 

She stands. She pads to the Hound’s pitiful seat and looms over him. She’s the shadow now. He has to look up to meet her eye. She’s not frightened by what she sees in him, not anymore.

But his voice is still poison. “You’re right, girl. I’m a liar, like the rest of them, but being a dog was a nice little show, wasn’t it? You can’t deny that.” 

“If you're not a dog, then what are you, really?” 

“A man. A monster, maybe.” He sighs, but it comes out as a growl. “I’m no one. Nothing. Same as everyone else.” 

“Sandor….” She’s never said his name aloud. It tastes like ash on her tongue.

He knows what she’s asking. 

He breathes like he has been all night long, like he's treading cold black water too far out in the God's Eye. But eventually, he speaks. His words are soft and acrid as smoke. 

“Aye, I’m cruel, but the world is crueler, and the Gods are the cruelest of all. Do you know why, little bird? It’s because they don’t care. _They don’t feel_. They put green boys to the sword, innocent men to the gallows, and unbled maidens to bed. They took your dear old father up those steps, and they’re the ones who sent his head tumbling back down. _The Gods_. Not because they’re cruel, but because there’s nothing. No Gods, no order, no justice. It’s chaos, little bird. It’s black as night. So where does that leave me?” He comes up for air, briefly. “The Gods abandoned me the day I earned my scars. It’s blackness ever since. Blackness in the daytime, and flame to haunt my sleep. It was always black. Until—” his eyes flick to hers, but only for a moment. He looks at his crumpled cloak instead. 

“Until it wasn’t. Because the Gods are indifferent, and they like jest as well as slaughter. They’re like to make a mock of me, so they put flame in my guts again. Waking fire, a nightmare come to life. A fire that flares up at my masters. Makes me _question_ them. Makes me feel the sick twist of sorrow when a maiden witnesses her father’s death. They put the fire back in me, all so I could watch blackness seep into the purest, whitest thing there is—the foolish heart of a child. 

“And I watched, aye, I fucking watched it happen. I watched the light fade from your pretty blue eyes as the Gods abandoned you. Same as they did to me. You’re right, little bird. I’m awful. A true knight would have severed the King’s ugly head on those very steps. A true knight would have swept you up, ridden from the city, and returned you to your kin. He doesn’t just _think_ those things. He _acts_. But I’m no knight. I laugh, I kill, I swear, and all so the flame doesn’t boil up to the surface. Because what happens then? What happens when the thoughts become actions? Tonight happens, that’s what. I lied _all over_ you. I _spared_ you. I had no other choice. If I—” his voice ruptures like ice, a loud, broken gasp. 

He picks up the pieces and carries on, quieter. “If I had to watch the last pure thing in this godsforsaken kingdom go to ash, that would be the end. I’d kill, little bird. I’d slide my dagger straight through your heart before letting any of those cunts inside of you, and I’d do for myself just the same, but only after bleeding the whole sorry lot of them. Aye, I spared you, but I spared all of us. So there’s your knight, pretty girl. There’s your little song. I pretended to put my cock inside you because I didn’t want to give anyone else the pleasure. Because _I wouldn’t_. Is that gallant enough for you?” 

It is, but she doesn’t know why. Her fingers are out before she can stop them, reaching, and he lets it happen. He lets her put aside his lank black hair to expose the equally dark flesh beneath. She touches him there, on those hot coals. He shuts his eyes while she learns all the crimson fissures that run through the charred black planes of his skin. She traces his jaw. She touches bone. 

“You care for me.” 

His eyes open again. They’re sad, grey stars.

“I care.” 

Their mouths connect. This is what you do after a song: you kiss. All those words fell from Sandor's lips, so now Sansa swallows them up. They taste like stale wine and soot. They feel warm and wet and rough, but only half-so. Mostly Sandor is soft. So soft that Sansa doesn't notice herself falling to the rushes. Two gentle hands trap her waist and guide her down, then he's over her again. 

_Did I surrender?_ Sansa can’t remember, but Sandor’s kisses become more urgent. His heavy breath spills from his nose to her face, a smelly fog. His hands are everywhere: her cheeks, her hair, her chest, her waist. His hands are lower, hoisting her hem. Mighty palms meet bare thigh, press them apart. He’s coming for her. 

His hardness pushes against her belly through layers of wool, a threat. Sansa whimpers into his mouth and takes up two handfuls of rushes. Her nails sink into the dirt, softened to mud by the overturned bucket. Water seeps through to her skin. 

_It can’t happen here_. _Not like this._

“Bed,” she asks in a small voice. 

Sandor’s answer is a grunt. He tosses her onto the straw mattress and straddles her; he’s busy. Sansa likes it here even less. The mattress is lumpy, the straw sharper than the rushes. She counts the jagged points in her backside. _Two-and-thirty_ , she thinks, as if it’s an accomplishment. It helps her forget about Sandor for a while, though. 

When she comes back to herself he’s still there. He’s working at something below his belt. Sansa frowns. His man’s staff isn’t a staff, it’s a worm. A sad, pink worm, soft in his brutish grip. He seems frustrated. His grunts are borderline feral. Sansa shouldn’t be watching this, and yet she can't take her eyes away. When Sandor meets them, her heart spurs.

“What?” he hisses. 

Sansa shakes her head. She doesn’t know what she’s witnessing. It must have been the end, because Sandor falls back. He fills up the lower half of the bed. 

“Is it over?” 

That makes him scoff. His hand is still there, stowed in his breeches. Then Sansa realizes—it never even began. 

She crawls towards him. She didn't mind the closeness. It's that _thing_ that scares her, the oversized worm, but only when it's hard. It's useless now, inoffensive, pitiful even. It can't hurt her when it's soft like that. So she wonders about it as she settles between Sandor's trunklike thighs. She suddenly wants to know everything about it. 

She runs her finger down Sandor's forearm to where his wrist is buried. There's nowhere for him to go, so he stays put. His breath is jagged rock. When Sansa puts her hand beneath his laces, it snags. 

"What are you doing, little bird?" 

She pushes his hand aside so she can touch him. His breath catches again, but he lets himself into her care. His manhood is just as soft as it looks, warm as she remembers. It's flopped over in her palm. _Pitiful_.

Why would she let something so feeble frighten her?

She could crush this. 

But she doesn't. 

She curls her fingers around it. She slides her fist along its length, to the pink hood that covers the tip of him. It hardens. Blood pools beneath her hold. It fills out her fist, and then some. It only takes a few more strokes before he's big again. The purple end, the angry end, pokes through. Even then, Sansa isn't scared. 

She's taking back what he took from her, all those times he stood by and watched her get bloodied. She'll have her answers now. 

"Why did you let them?" It's a venomous croak. 

"Let them what?" 

"Hurt me." 

Sansa squeezes hard and he groans. "I'm sorry, little bird. I shouldn't have." 

She likes the apology, even if it doesn't answer her question. She gives him more pressure, he likes that. The more merciless she is, the harder he throbs. She adds another hand. This one combs through the dark curls at the base of his manhood, or fingers the slick tip of him, depending how generous she feels. 

"Will you let them do it again? Will you give Joffrey my maidenhead?" 

His next exhale is a growl, low and rumbling. But he doesn't use his words, so Sansa stops moving. That gets his attention. 

"I won't," he rasps. "I won't let the boy near you." 

He's looking at her that way again. He _always_ looks at her like this, and Sansa can't believe she hasn't realized it before. Only now that they're so perversely entangled does she finally understand. He wants to devour her. He wants to suck the marrow from her bones and leave them for the crows. 

But he won't. He would never. 

She put the flame in his belly. The flame that tells him to disobey, to preserve her purity. He was thinking those things, and then he started to _do_ those things. 

He pretends to be a dog, but he's really a knight. 

When she starts stroking him again, she withholds nothing. She's so angry at him. She hates him for being so ugly and so cruel, for laughing at the wrong things and calling her that stupid name. But mostly, she hates him for lying. He should have helped her. If he truly cared, he would have given her Joffrey's head. 

That's when the tears start. They dribble from the point of Sansa's chin to where her hand glides up and down Sandor's swollen staff. He doesn't notice. He's shut his eyes, and his breath is so loud it drowns out the sound of Sansa's weeping. The harder he breathes, the harder she cries, until she can't even see. She tugs, and tugs, and tugs, hoping she's gripping him hard enough to make it hurt.

But she knows each squeeze only brings him closer to his moment of pleasure, because he starts talking again, like he did at the table.

"Little bird," he sputters over and over. "Sansa, please. Forgive me." 

His manhood quakes in her fist, and warmth spills over her knuckles. She doesn't know to stop. She keeps stroking, sobbing, pulling on him until he's soft again. She's falling too, wilting into Sandor like a sad flower. He takes her hand away, wipes away the stickiness with rough wool.

He bundles her in it and sets his mouth to the crown of her head.

"Little bird,” he whimpers. He’s so gentle that Sansa sobs harder, but strong arms stay her, rock her. Their breath makes a sad song together. Sansa reaches for his face and finds the wet dark of the Gods Eye on his skin. Perhaps the hollow of his arms is the lake's black, bottomless expanse. Perhaps they’ve both sunken to its depths. 

Or perhaps the hollow is a different shelter. A shelter for a wolfling pup, bruised after a long day of play. Sansa knows this embrace. She knows these arms, this chest, this scent. Sandor has been here all along. He saved her from falling since the moment they first met, and he's saving her now, whispering, "Little bird, shhh, little bird. Hush now. I've got you. You're safe here. No harm will come." 

Eventually their sobs fade to steady breath. 

Into the quiet, Sandor softly says, "I'm taking you away, little bird. Tonight." 

And so they go.


	2. Maids and Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor and Sansa get out of the Kingswood together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, in a fit of passion, I wrote another part to this story. Tagging dubcon because Sansa is underage and isn't particularly good at asking permission either. Thematic listening this time is [ Fair Game by Sia](https://youtu.be/SL4kxeXwUeg).
> 
> Enjoy 🌚

It’s all woods now. Trees blur to brown and green masses above. Stream water splashes Sansa’s skirts with each thundering gallop. “Faster, faster,” says Sandor. He’s taken Sansa’s nerves for her. He frets for both of them, fists tight on the reins. 

In his arms she’s safe. 

She spends all her time in his arms, pressed between the pommel and his chest. A night and day and another night pass this way. Trees, streams, speed. Sandor grumbles when Sansa asks for water. He grumbles even worse when she has to make water, says, “Get yourself wet, girl. Or we’ll get caught.”

He ends up stopping. Sansa turns her back when she lifts her skirts, but she knows he’s watching. He’s always watching. He doesn’t give her food. He didn’t take much food, only what could fit in two sorry saddlebags. Dried meats, hard yellow cheese, a satchel of oats and barley. A cabbage, for some reason. Lots of wine. But no sweets. No honey. No fruit. 

Up on Stranger’s back Sansa gnaws at a strip of boar; Sandor caved. She cries a bit because this isn't what she wants, it doesn't taste good, and he doesn’t really care. He’s busy worrying. Sansa tries worrying too, then. Who will Joffrey send after them? How fast will his ravens fly? Or will someone worse come first? How long do they have? 

How long does Sansa have? 

Bound, freely, to the Hound. 

And why, in the name of all Seven Above, is _this_ her escort? 

She's a lady, not a cabbage. 

Praying is better than thinking, so that’s what Sansa does. _Spare me_ , she thinks. _Make him gentle_ , she thinks more than once. _Make him like he was at the lodge, soft, wet, pliant_. He doesn’t want to be plied anymore though. He wants to drive Stranger into frigid waters at a blistering pace. He wants Sansa to stay quiet. “Quit weeping, girl. You’re fine. We're going south. Not a peep from you.” 

“I want my family,” she peeps anyway. 

“Your family’s friends will do just as well,” he says back. “Now hush.” 

Sansa doesn’t know what he means, but she’s tired of him being rude, so she falls asleep. The saddle isn’t so horrible. Sandor is rude and ugly but he won’t let her fall, he’s proven that. Her head drops to his upper arm and bounces along to Stranger’s hoofbeats. A woebegone cradle, but a cradle nevertheless. 

The next time it gets dark Sandor stops, finally. He almost topples from his stallion’s back, and Sansa feels sorry for him. He's stayed awake for both of them, for days now. His boots drag in the muddy creek bed as he guides Stranger to a thick oak, tethers him around its trunk. Then he helps Sansa down. He tugs her skirt back into place, brushes away a little bud of snot that trickled beneath her nose. Sansa sniffs. 

She wants a bath. A true bath, in a big copper tub. She wants her handmaids and a hairbrush and a looking glass. She wants a velvet coverlet and a silken nightgown, brand new ribbons and a warm cup of milk. She wants her mother, her father even more so. 

She wants home. 

Instead, she has Sandor. He’s still hard to look at, that big scary dog. Sansa knows he’ll give her none of what she wants. She wonders if she’d rather have her plump Ser Dontos. She wonders what she’ll miss, now that she’s the Hound’s helpless little rabbit. There’s nothing to see in the starlight but the white shine in his eyes, and the shadow of much worse on the left of him. He didn’t ask to be scary in that way. He’s still scary. He has the look of a monster. 

Monsters need rest too. He nearly collapses at the base of his chosen tree and beckons Sansa with a slow wave. “Come here, little bird.” She’s supposed to hide in his arms, so she does. Sandor is warm and gentle as he sweeps his cloak over her shoulders and secures her in his great, consuming embrace. 

Sansa pretends to sleep but listens to him breathe, to make sure he’s still a man. 

She wishes she _had_ slept, because she learns why he hasn’t been soft. At her hip, his staff grows. It’s a snake now, on the prowl for small game like her. She hates the feeling. _What does he want_ , she thinks. 

“What’s that?” Sandor rasps. 

Oh, she said it aloud. 

“He’s hungry,” she says now, because it’s true. She unsticks her arm from her chest and slides a finger along the hot outline in Sandor’s breeches. _This thing_ , she thinks. Such trouble. Maidens aren’t supposed to touch these things, but it doesn’t make Sansa less of a maiden. Only him. She supposes it makes you impolite, touching places on a man that don’t belong to you. But the wolf was the one who had touched him there that night. She claimed him with a biting paw. 

So perhaps the wolf is the one touching him again. 

“Leave it,” Sandor says, but his breath is shallow, ineffective. He settles into Sansa’s light touch. 

“It feels good?” she says, though it comes out as a question. She honestly doesn’t know. 

Sandor doesn’t want to answer. Two extra fingers and heavier petting force it out. “Aye,” he hisses. “But leave it be, little bird. You don’t need—we shouldn’t—” 

Sandor’s breath hitches. He’s big, and the snake has slithered down his thigh. He throbs through the wool; there’s a heartbeat in there and the wolf is clawing it out. “Please, little bird. Please.” Yes, softness again. He’s begging her, and Sansa doesn’t care what for. She just likes the begging. It’s accompanied by uneven breath, a snag and release, like thick cloth catching on a tangle of thorns.

Sandor gives up and closes his eyes. His head drops back to the trunk. He’s surrendered. Sansa knows it’s over when he swears and warmth spills from the tip of him. It forms a dark, sticky splotch halfway down his leg. 

The snake retreats. Sansa smiles, satisfied.

“Thank you, little bird,” Sandor breathes to the night sky. Then he puts a kiss on the crown of her head. His mouth stays there, burrowed in her hair, until the sky turns light purple. Soft. 

So Sansa learns a lesson. She puts it to use every day. They don’t have a tent, that much is clear. They won’t have one for a while. So at night, when Sandor hunkers down in sprawling tree roots, or sticks himself in the crook of a protective boulder, Sansa goes with him. She sleeps in his arms. 

This isn’t how things are supposed to be—Sandor isn’t truly a knight, and he’s certainly not her lord husband. He’s an ugly old man, who’s frightfully good with a sword. He has an axe, too. He stole it from the lodge before they left. He uses it to chop wood, whenever he deems it safe enough to build a fire. That isn’t often. Only an hour or two, here and there, to roast up a rabbit. He’s good at catching rabbits. It makes Sansa both pleased and unnerved, the catching. Are those rabbits for her, or just as easy as her. Is he feeding her, or teaching her something. 

She eats the rabbit, whatever Sandor has to spare.

And she keeps Sandor soft. He’s hardest in the morning. Most mornings, the snake wakes up first. By now the wolf is bolder. It’s no good to make a mess of his breeches, so she undoes Sandor’s laces and takes his staff in her palm. She’s good at squeezing. He’s so big that she uses two hands most times, stacked atop one another. She likes to rub all the water that comes out early on his bright purple end. Oh, that spot is trouble. When Sansa touches Sandor there, _he_ can’t pick a place to touch. He paws at her untidy plaits, or her cheeks, or her waist. He steals softness from every part of her. He needs it, desperately. Otherwise he’s mean. 

When he finishes, Sansa collects his seed in her palm. Then she holds it up to him. He figures out what to do with it, because Sansa won’t. Sometimes he scoops it up with a leaf and throws it to the ground. Other times he dumps water on Sansa’s fingers. Once, he swallows his mess. “What does it taste like,” Sansa asks. Shit, apparently. It doesn’t smell that way, but even so, gross. Sansa says she’ll never taste it. 

Sandor laughs. He doesn’t believe her, but Sansa doesn’t care. He’s gentle again. He has two laughs. One of them is a barking dog laugh. The other is thunder, if thunder was honey-sweet and golden. Sansa likes that laugh the best. 

They’re avoiding roads and people, recognition. Sansa is a little bird but she understands. Their lonely wood walk is getting easier. Sandor is less hungry and laughing his better laugh, because Sansa has so many questions to ask. She’s gotten tired of watching elm and oak and scattered ivy. Soggy leaves mush below and the blue sky swirls above. Sansa is a little bird. She peeps. 

“What’s it like out west?” 

“Pretty.” 

“How big is your keep?” 

“Big enough.” 

“Where’s your father?” 

“Dead.” 

“Mother?” 

“Very dead.” 

Sansa doesn’t ask about his brother; she already knows. She moves on. 

“How many men have you killed?” 

“Lots.” 

“Are you going to kill more?” 

“Probably.” 

“Do you like being terrible?” 

“I do.” 

“Why do you get so hard?” 

Sandor says nothing but sticks his hand down between them to adjust himself. When Sansa turns and frowns, he laughs his better laugh. “Because you smell nice,” is all he says. 

Sansa feigns dismay, but settles her backside closer to him. He’s hungry and not for a girl—Sansa smells like a rabbit. She’s certain of it. She hasn’t washed since her bucket bath. They’re moving too quickly. The only kiss of water she gets in the daytime is when Stranger stops to drink. Sansa rinses her hands and her face, but she hasn’t gotten the rest of her body. Sandor never goes away. She’s too afraid to sneak to the creek in the night to bathe alone. She never goes away. 

Sandor smells worse. Horrible, even. He drinks strongwine as they ride. It makes his breath black and slimy on Sansa’s scalp. His armpits hover at either side of her head, and they reek. Sansa knows what they smell like now: a skunk. The hounds at Winterfell were always getting sprayed during hunts. Sandor’s armpits are the kennel at high-noon in summertime. Filthy dog. 

But what can she do about it? 

There isn’t time to stop. There’s less water when they emerge from the Kingswood and set out towards the rocky Marches. Sansa doesn’t have a change of clothes, only her woolen shift and heavier wool overkirtle. She wears hose with her slippers, even though it looks ridiculous, because Sandor couldn’t find her a pair of boots. "Make me some," she huffed on the third or fourth night, toes frozen. Sandor laughed at her instead. 

_At least he’s faring worse_ , Sansa thinks. There’s a white crust on his thigh that he hasn’t bothered to clean. His tunic probably ought to be burned. Sansa is morbidly curious about what lies underneath. Hardness, of course. A different kind. If he builds a fire tonight…. 

Oh, no.

Now, with Sandor hard at her back, smelling her dirty hair, Sansa is worried—it’s wrong. How does she know? Because her heart beats where Sandor’s does. _She’s_ sticky. Hot sap puddles between her legs, and she worries. Sandor will see. She’ll soak straight through her bunched-up skirts. She can’t help it. She shifts and shifts, but the saddle has her pulse screaming. One more brush of stiff leather and she whimpers. 

“What?” Sandor rasps. 

“No,” Sansa whispers back. 

He doesn’t say anything else. He’s hard until dusk. Sansa suffers. She’s surprised she doesn't ooze straight from his arms. 

Part of her has, though. After Sandor plucks her from the saddle and fixes her skirts, he grins. The front of the saddle is shining. He swipes at the glossy leather bare-skinned, squishes his findings between his forefinger and thumb. 

He sucks himself clean. 

Sansa’s cold-kissed cheeks go red in an instant. Tears well up in her eyes. It’s wrong.

Sandor's laughter cuts. “Did it feel good?” he rasps, stalking off to make water before Sansa can reply. She lets the tears go. Her cheeks cool in the dark breeze. She shivers. _What’s happening to me_ , she thinks. _Why am I so hungry?_

She decides she has snakes in her belly, not unlike Sandor’s. They become frequent visitors. 

They visit first in the morning, when she helps Sandor. They come back in the saddle, when she _thinks_ of Sandor. It’s like tumbling down a hill. First a tickle of warmth creeps between her legs. Then she pictures Sandor, between _his_ legs. Red, hard, hairy, and most of all, big. He gets so big, and so hot. His pulse goes mad, enraged iron. He glows. 

Then Sansa glows. 

So she grinds against folds of wool and the curved pommel. She falls from there, fast. She presses her buttocks into Sandor, hard or soft. Midafternoon, in the craggy foothills, she can’t stop. She feels like she’s on a hunt. There’s something to be tamed down there. Something angry and wild as Sandor. Sansa doesn’t know if it wants to be trapped or released. If it’s feeding her or being fed. But she’s riding. 

She’s losing her air, and she can’t get it back. 

“Little bird?” 

Sandor’s breath lapses like a warm wave down her forehead. She wipes away the sweat there with gentle fingertips, but can’t find calm. Her blood won’t settle. “Sandor,” she whines. The snakes are ravenous; they’re eating her up. She knows, because her heart is aching down there. It’s being torn in two. “Help,” she tries again. Sansa slumps forward, grasping the saddlehorn in one hand and Sandor’s forearm in the other.

“Easy,” he says. He moves an arm to hook it low over her hips. “What’s the matter?” 

It’s Sandor’s fault. He’s too heavy and warm on her belly. The pressure of his rigid muscles makes her burst. Her heart ruptures first, then molten sap pours out. Sansa whimpers, and her whimpers become cries. “It feels good,” she wails. 

“What does?” Sandor asks. 

Sansa guides his hand above her flower, where wool shields her maidenhair. She can’t bring herself to explain. “Oh, little bird,” Sandor growls. 

His staff stirs, and stays. 

This isn’t what ladies and knights are supposed to do, because Sansa hasn’t heard any songs about this. Wives and husbands are supposed to lay in bed. Sometimes the common folk roll in the hay, or so Theon used to say. But Theon is gross. Sansa will lose her maidenhead in bed, like a proper lady. She needs to figure out what happens in between. She needs a song about snakes and hands and saddles. About bundling up at the roots of tall trees and playing with a man’s pulse. Where are those songs? 

Sansa tries to invent one as they ride. They’re not on a road, but they’re not as well hidden without the woods. Stranger trots over spills of rock and through snarled brush. There are trees, but they’re fewer and smaller. Some are like pines, but low and squat. Others are white-barked with waxy diamond leaves that Sansa tears from their wiry branches as they pass. They find a tree heavy with red fruit: pomegranates. 

Sansa squeals, Sandor groans, and he fills up their saddlebags to bursting. Sansa piles more into her skirts and picks them apart the entire afternoon. Sandor complains. “We could trade them, little bird. Save them.” The easiest way to keep him quiet is to feed him. Sansa pries ruby jewels from sponge-like white flesh and pushes them into Sandor’s malformed lips, one by one. If she moves quick enough, he won’t talk. When she gets bored of putting them in his mouth, she stuffs one in his nostril. He gives Sansa an angry look, grey eyes narrowed to slits. Then he snorts and shoots the seed square between her brow. 

“Hey,” she whines, rubbing the soreness it left behind. 

Sandor laughs like friendly thunder. 

They remember to worry when they pass a man with a mule and cart. Sandor draws his cowl close, and Sansa does the same. Nods are exchanged, but not words. Seen, but safe. "What happens if we get caught," Sansa frets aloud. "I kill," Sandor replies. He pats his hilt. He loves killing. He wouldn’t love being killed, though, which is why they keep from towns. Which is why it’s just Sansa and Sandor, and all she can think of is him. 

All she thinks of is the lodge. Him, slipping from beneath her. Sansa can’t recall now if she had sap between her legs—she was too preoccupied with Sandor’s staff. If she was sticky, he would have felt it, because his thumb was inside her, too. He wanted to be there, in the end. The snake did. He thought Sansa had invited him in. She hadn’t, though. 

_I wanted the kisses,_ she thinks. Half-soft. Hard and soft both, more like. A pomegranate jewel. Juicy red pulp with a stiff seed center. Both. 

She eats five more fruits, discards the peels as they walk. 

Sandor says they can have a fire tonight. He’s had two brown rabbits dangling from the bags all day, and they’re begging to be roasted. “Dead things can’t beg,” Sansa says. She’s thinking of Sandor’s begging, but doesn’t mention it. 

The rabbits roast on a spit over low coals, then hop their way to Sandor’s belly. Sansa eats some too, tenderly pinching strings of muscle between her fingertips. She laps herself clean after each greasy bite. Sandor watches her, because he’s already finished his portion. He’s drinking the last of the wine. Sansa knows, because he’s been grumbling about it nonstop. They’ll need more. They’ll need people soon. Sansa is forgetting about people. 

The night isn’t terribly cold. The stars are bright and plenty. Sandor reclines against a lichen-drenched rock. His brawny legs are splayed, his canteen in a loose fist at his side. He tilts his eyes to the sky. “Do you like them?” Sansa asks. She still asks him questions like he’s a monster; she can’t resist. “Not really,” is his reply. His next swig misses his good cheek, it spills from the gaps in the bad one. See, Sansa is glad she asked. 

Sandor swipes at his face with his sleeve. It comes away dark. 

“Do they hurt?” 

“Aye.” 

“They look horrible.” 

Sandor levels a mean stare at Sansa. A mistake, because she reaches out. She grazes his blackened cheek with her knuckles. “They feel horrible,” she breathes. “I hate them.” 

“Smart bird,” Sandor replies. He isn’t angry. “I hate them too.” 

Sansa comes closer. She scoots on her knees through tufts of thin grass to put herself between Sandor’s legs. Tonight, she doesn’t drop to his chest immediately. She keeps touching him. Her palm opens up, holds his crisped scars. Like a dragon’s scales—yes, that’s better. The face of a dark dragon. Daunting. Flame-kissed. Full of hate. It spills hot from his nostrils, and Sansa hasn’t any seeds to plug him up. 

No seeds, but she has perfectly good lips. So she presses them to Sandor’s lips. A whole meal sits in his mouth: sour wine, savory game, and the distant ghost of fruit, like a tangy star. Sansa tastes it with her tongue. She’s gone inside of him. Sandor wants to be tasted, because he presses a palm into the small of her back. No retreating. 

Sansa knows why there aren’t songs about tongues. This isn’t pretty. It’s wet and slimy and warm. Yet Sansa is desperate for it. She’s winding around a much bigger tongue, pushing into lips that burn and sharp hair that scrapes the skin from her chin. 

And she’s learning, her belly boiling. She’s eating flame. 

She wants her main course, now. She finds Sandor’s laces easily, layered beneath his tunic and jerkin. She only needs one hand to untie them, to release Sandor. He’s ready. He groans into Sansa’s mouth. He’s holding onto her hips, in case _he_ falls. She’s never kissed him and touched him at the same time. She hasn’t kissed him since the lodge. 

She suddenly understands kissing. The snakes like it. They like everything she’s doing. They’re nice snakes, she realizes, if you’re nice to them. 

Sansa wants to be nicer, but how? She’s not on the saddle. 

She thinks of the next best thing. 

Sansa takes Sandor by the wrist. She pushes his hand over her maidenhair. That’s where her pulse is, the second heartbeat, she’s fairly certain. “Little bird,” he whispers. He doesn’t move his mouth from hers. It feels safer to talk when they’re close, when they’re each other’s only air. 

“Please,” Sansa says. She can beg too. She tugs her skirts from beneath her until they ride at her knees. “Down there, please.” Sandor fills her mouth with rank flame. “Fine.” 

His hand crawls along her bare thigh, warm. She shudders. “Good,” Sandor says. It might be a question, but Sansa doesn’t reply. He lands on her. Four fingers nestle in her delicate hair; his thumb drops down. 

Sansa falls. She forgets his mouth and his mottled cheek. She’s on his chest now, weakly pawing at his jerkin. She’s a silly bird—she can’t hold herself. Sandor knows this too, so he brings Sansa into his lap, props her up with a strong arm coiled around her shoulders. His hand shifts so his palm rests on her hair, just as the pommel had. Two fingers probe her tiny pulse. 

“What is it?” she says to his chest. 

“This?” He bears down on Sansa. She whimpers. “This is—well, it's your tender little bud.” 

He smiles down at her, softly, eyes bright. “Do you like it?”

Sansa meekly nods. 

“That’s a good little bird.” 

While Sandor traces circles around her bud, Sansa picks up his staff. It’s been dancing along his abdomen and looks like it needs a nice touch, too. It’s nice touches for a while, a gentle exchange, until Sandor’s fingers hunt too low. They dip into Sansa’s sap. She clamps down on Sandor's staff and he howls. He sinks deeper inside her, stretching her, throwing fire into her tummy. “Ouch,” she cries, clenching her thighs. “Not there.” 

Sandor’s fingers come out dark. Sansa’s face collapses; her chin won’t stay up. She tries to shove her tears away with the heel of her palm, but they’re dropping hot and fast. “I’m not a maiden anymore,” she whimpers. “How could you?” 

She should escape, and she should definitely let go of Sandor’s staff, but she stays put and cries. “Little bird,” he says. “Come now. You’re alright.” He wipes her blood on his breeches and sticks his dirty hand on her wet face. He does nothing but mash loose curls to her temples. “You’re still a maiden. Fingers don’t count.” 

The hand does a little something, because Sansa quiets. She sniffs up the looming threat of warm snot. She looks at her own hand through blurry eyes. “Are you still a maiden?” she asks.

Sandor’s laughter shakes the earth. He laughs so hard his head smacks against stone, and he laughs even harder after that. If it wasn’t night Sansa would have been able to see straight past his fangs down his throat. She really wants to be mad, but her lips turn the wrong direction. She laughs with her brow twisted, thumping her slippers in the grass. 

“You’re awful,” she gets out between angry giggles. “I mean it.” 

“I’m honest,” he barks back. 

Eventually they settle down. Warm embers crackle at Sandor’s feet. Crickets chirp. Sansa trails a finger absently along his stiff length. He likes it; his breath isn’t coming right, probably because his mouth is buried in her hair. He tries to put her curls back into place. “I’m sorry,” he whispers once or twice. 

“I forgive you,” Sansa says. “But be nice.” 

A few more slight strokes and his seed spills. Sansa holds up the warm palmful. She glances to Sandor, then drinks the stickiness up.

She can be nice, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smash some keys if you wanna see bath time 😈


	3. Dirt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa loses herself to the wild.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy, 
> 
> Continued content warning for dubious consent. I wrote this in a menstrual fog; I'm a humble servant to my hormonal tide. It's out there. It's an experiment. But I've got a story arc now and I'm sticking with it. Keep some hand sanitizer close by. Listen to [Nicole Dollanganger's Dog Teeth](https://youtu.be/DZF0UMjraq8) for some vibes. 
> 
> Enjoy.

Sansa thinks a lot about kissing, more than she ever has before. 

While they ride, she tells herself all she knew, and now knows, about this carnal art. To start, kissing is for lovers. Before, she was going to kiss Joffrey. His lips were red and droopy, like plump rose petals. Later, they were worms. She will certainly never be kissing Joffrey. As a lady, she should kiss only princes and lords and knights, in that order. Her hand is always apt to be kissed, her cheek to a lesser extent, and her lips—those are sacred. Reserved, for a lover. 

What Sansa is actually thinking about is lovers. 

She isn't supposed to have one, of course. She's barely flowered. She's still promised to Joffrey, though that promise is withered and rotted to black mulch. She's thinking of promises. Her maidenhead is hers, and not hers. It belongs to her future lord husband. She's protecting it in the meantime. Her chastity could end a war, forge the North and South. Mother told her, Septa Mordane told her, and she's telling herself again, here on the saddle: _protect yourself._

 _From what_ , says another voice. _Is not the finest protection in all the realm at your back?_

That's the voice that teases her. Sansa is a lady flowered, a woman. They're headed south to Dorne, where women rule and take paramours as they please. Can Sansa take what she pleases? Sandor pleases her greatly. 

See, all this time alone and she forgets the rules. Her head is muddied as her hems. Her blood is boiled syrup in her veins. The only person she has to answer her questions is Sandor. "Is it bad," is the first thing she wants to know. He replies with his own question: "Do you like it?" 

Sansa chews on that one for a while. 

"You can like bad things," she decides. Sandor throws a laugh to the sky, scratches his belly. 

"That you can, little bird."

Later, while she's still digesting, he adds, "We can stop, if you don't like it. Tell me, and we'll stop."

It feels like a trap, somehow. His voice is too soft, too open, like an empty field of snow in the dead of winter. Sansa, the little wolf, is lost there. Her paws are cold but if she burrows she'll find warmth. Better yet, there could be a meal down below the frozen earth. A feast for the season. 

Mostly, Sansa is on thin ice that's thawing. Sandor, of course, is a dark sun. 

Before, he was an ugly dog. He still isn't a pretty dog, or a young dog. He's a smelly dog, a strong dog, a big dog. He hovers heavy at Sansa's back. She doesn't need to see his muscles to know they're there, dormant, in wait. Sansa likes all the things his muscles do. She's watching him now, you see. She watches him hoist himself up and over the saddle. She watches him split logs, skin rabbits, spill seed. She thinks this is the way Sandor watches her. 

This is what Sansa thinks: Sandor has body to spare. She knows about kissing. Each kiss is tender theft. They're taking small bites of one another. Dining, feasting. This is why Sansa has problems: she's hungry for the wrong things. 

She eats a lot of Sandor. 

They break their fast together. Sansa wakes him up with her hands, charms the seed from his snake. She swallows it, because it makes Sandor smile and say nice things. He has nice things to say to her, appetite-inducing. He thinks she's a pretty girl, the _prettiest_ girl. Sansa didn't know he found anything pretty. He laughs at that, then the kisses start. 

Yes, Sansa likes the kisses. Her favorite part of Sandor is his mouth. His smiles swim at the surface; his laughter hides below. Sansa tries to capture both. Really, Sandor lets her do whatever she likes. He lies slack against his stump, or rock, or trunk, and accepts her kisses. Sansa's lips pucker and twist against his. She takes him between her teeth, sinks in, a wolf's kiss. Sandor growls. She licks. She laps across his lips and teeth and tongue. She tastes his crooked nose and salty forehead. She's tasted his scars, too. Smoke, blood, the dark half of the sun. 

Sansa writes her own songs like this. She's lost in the snow, and she is the snow. She's not cold. 

Inevitably, Sandor is the one who says they have to move on with the day. They ride uphill. They're going up the mountain. The higher, the better, Sandor says. An advantage. An advantage that has Sansa's backside flush against Sandor's chest. His pulses pound. One up top, and one below. It torments her, truly. 

Sandor knows. Since the day he saw her dew, he's known. He turns hard; she puddles. It's a game that hurts to play. Sansa squishes her buttocks against the snake, and he stirs. But squishing comes at a cost: sap. So she wiggles and wiggles, and sees who bursts first. Sandor is a fierce competitor. He clenches the reins, breathes fire onto Sansa's plaits. "Little bird," he warns in a growl. "Careful, girl." 

This time, it's a draw. The snake writhes through layers of wool, a new darkness spreads at Sandor's thigh, and Sansa breaks. Warm sap gushes forth. She whimpers because it feels horribly good. Sandor sighs after this, his winter sigh. "You made a mess, little bird," he says, answering the question Sansa is too ashamed to ask aloud. 

_What have I done?_

"Sorry," she whispers.

Sandor picks up Sansa's hands and holds them beneath his, on the reins. "It's alright," he says. He kisses the crown of her head. Their hands stay. 

If Sansa's lucky, they kiss at midday rest. Little pecks from a little bird, is what Sandor calls it. He feeds her bites of cheese and grovels about the lack of wine. They won't find people until they're deeper in the Marches, where mountains give way to valleys and towns sprout from stone. Sandor wants to avoid towns. He’s hoping to find a trader, a lone wanderer like them. "People are pox," Sandor says. "Words spread, and scars make good stories." 

Sansa remembers liking people. People were mother and father, Robb, Arya, Bran, and baby Rickon. People were Jeyne and Old Nan and Septa Mordane. But Joffrey and Cersei are people. And Ilyn Payne—

A pox. 

Sansa has one person now, one man. It's all she needs, a pretty flower and her scary sun. 

In daylight he is scary. Sharp winter rays spill over his shoulders and catch the jags and hollows of his face. He sits on a fallen log and Sansa stands before him, nibbling cheese, watching. He’s old because his skin is tanned and weathered like animal hide. Lines crinkle at the corner of his good eye. Half his forehead is etched with permanent concern. His cheekbones jut out. His jaw makes an angle fit for a stone mason, square and taut. In between is a pocket of dark stubble. Sansa touches Sandor there, in his carved out better cheek. Nothing is soft about his face, which is why he’s scary. She’s not even thinking of his scars right now. She’s thinking about the way his nose protrudes and hooks, the strong slope of his brow. She hasn’t seen shapes like these on any other man’s face. 

New things are frightening; her fingertips prickle. If she looks too long, she can’t decide which half of his face is light and which is dark. Fire and blood flicker on the left. Sansa prods the live wound only a little—harsh wind and cold have cracked it open. First, crimson pours. Later, it’s white. Ivory crystals fill in his gaps. It isn’t pretty. 

“Let’s get on,” Sandor says. Sansa has stared for too long. She scoops Sandor’s chin in her palm and sets her lips to his. He doesn’t open them; he grunts. He forces his way up and blots out the sun. He’s all dark, then. And big. Sansa’s breath steams up his jerkin. Big is scary too. It means he could kill. 

Sansa isn’t sharing a bed with a killer, though. She only shares the saddle and the reach of his arms. Her teasing voice says, _Father was a killer_. A voice that sounds like Sandor says, _He took joy in it, too_. The rest of the afternoon is for thinking of killers and joy, because Sansa realizes her future lord husband is bound to be a killer. All men are, especially the noble ones. 

But not all men are scary. Loras is soft—he’s a bouquet in a shining armor. Joffrey looks soft, but he’s a monster in pretty lion’s skin. 

Sansa is afraid of Sandor in a different way. He wouldn’t simply kill her if he could, he’d swallow her whole. As they press on through sparse trees and scattered boulders, Sansa slumps into him. She sizes her spine against him and knows: there’s room enough for her in his belly.

She needs to get to him first. She’s trying to frighten him too. It’s their game. It’s the snakes. 

All of Sansa’s time passes in service to the snakes. It’s a new, but pleasant, life for a girl on the run with a Lannister dog. She’s already had fun twice before the morning, but she forgets how the afternoons can drag. The winter sun comes down harsh to cook up smells that Sansa doesn’t particularly care for. She’s soup with Sandor. Damp wool gathers in their combined crevices. Slick skin pools together. They’re fresh garlic in hot lard. They’re steeped in each other. 

She feels stupid for making a second stain on his breeches. She notices all the stains, then. The brown smear of her blood on his left thigh, splotches of dirt on both his knees, splatters of mud that reach his tunic sleeves. Below his armpits are salty white circles, a progression of bigger and bigger crusty haloes on sour green wool.

And Sandor’s fingernails—they’re gross. He digs Sansa's holes for her. 

After a while of drab mountain scenery, Sansa's only distraction is her voice. She's bent on collecting Sandor's stains, especially the hidden ones. "Who kissed you first?" Mother. "You know what I mean." A village girl. "How old were you?" Five. "That doesn't count." Sure does. Sansa gets annoyed. He still doesn't care to answer her truthfully. "Do you like kissing?" she finally asks. 

"Never have." 

Sansa huffs and crosses her arms. She was fingering Sandor's hairy knuckles on the reins, but not anymore. He's being punished. He knows, because he laughs like a dog. "I like kissing you, little bird," he recants. "Only you." 

Good, she's special. Sansa likes that. She wants to pry more, but she's afraid of learning where his snake has been. She can't talk of that openly to the bald blue sky and shallow rocky face before her. That's something she'll whisper in Sandor's mouth, when she's ready. Kissing is safe. It's a soft familiar song. 

Sansa has stayed too quiet, so Sandor takes over and kisses her head. His kisses are as ridiculous as hers. He experiments back there, licking and gnawing on her plaits. Her hair is frizzy and dull with grease, but he doesn't care. He drags his teeth over her scalp. They clamp down on a plait, and he tugs. He shakes Sansa's entire head this way, and she tries very hard to pout her way through it. "Sandor," she whines. She reaches back to pet his face, but leaves her belly exposed, and worse, her armpit. 

Sandor's hand invades in a flash. The sensation is a nightmare. He uses five cruel fingers to milk her body for laughter. She laughs and laughs and her laughs turn to half-shrieks. She gropes for his flesh but finds strings of dark hair instead. "Sandor," she breathes, "Sandor, please." She tries to wriggle from the saddle and drop to rocky ground, to safety, but his hand steadies and tickles all at once. He's deep in her belly, no, no, there's water there, and not enough ice. But he's poached her air. She can't warn him. 

When she shatters, she mewls. Warm water spills into her skirts. She weakly clutches Sandor's hair, in the hopes it will keep her from drifting away in her flood. "Oh, little bird," he says when he notices the damp that spreads between her legs. Sansa's face wrinkles. 

"You made a mess," she cries. She's miserably moist. She wasn't holding onto that much water, but it's dripped down her legs and seeped into her hose. It sticks her skin to the saddle, and stings. 

It's Sandor's fault, and he knows it. 

He untangles Sansa's fingers from his hair and kisses them one by one. He folds both of Sansa's hands in one of his, and holds them on the reins. The other hand is for apologies. He smooths out her plaits and shifts her skirts to tuck dry swathes of wool beneath her bottom and around her thighs. 

"Good," he says. 

"It's alright," Sansa sniffs in reply. 

The rest of the afternoon smells. Sansa doesn't have a change of clothes. They don't have time to wash their clothes, unless they want to risk being discovered, naked. No matter what, they'd ride away in wet skin. Still, it's a cheerful idea, freezing cold water. Sandor, bare. But there are other problems. They haven't found a pond in the mountains. The streams are sparse and thin, and don't appear daily. 

Sandor and Sansa have to be smart. When they find a stream, they splash clean—faces, hands, feet. They collect water in Sandor's canteen, and take it onward, onward. It won't do to stop for long. The last stream was yesterday; the canteen is half-full. Sansa squints and strains to spot more freshwater as the sun dips low. More than anything, she wants to smell it—crisp cold water murmuring over smooth stones. A sound as sumptuous as cake. 

Sansa's senses are deprived, so she retreats to her head. In there, there's a lofty fount, hemmed by tall pine and sheets of rock. There's only her and Sandor. He's seen her naked, so her skin isn't the surprise. He has her memorized. No, Sandor is the novelty. Kindly, Sansa would unlace what needs unlacing. She'd peel off his soiled woolen sheaths. 

_Is he missing any other patches of skin_ , Sansa wonders. She has a vision of pulling off his tunic to reveal a charred black expanse beneath. The tunic is too heavy; it is his skin. A pile of hide sits on a blanket of dirty pine needles. She's unravelled him. His scars are everywhere, she should have known, and she's made more of them. He’s a living wound. 

She hears his begging voice like a far-off breeze. He wants to be stripped to bone. He likes it. Sansa nuzzles her skull against the exposed edge of his jaw. _He's always naked_ , she thinks. 

Aloud she says, "I want a bath." 

Sandor doesn't entertain her demands. Tonight, like most nights, they bathe like birds. 

They have a little ritual. After dinner, the canteen comes out. It’s Sansa’s turn first. She rinses her fingertips and clears the grime from her face. She’s good at this. Then it’s Sandor’s turn. Sansa helps him, because she likes it. She dribbles water on his hands then scrapes his nails clean with hers. She doesn’t want to see black dirt beneath them if he’s going to touch her, _down there_. Whatever she collects she wipes off on her cloak. Her cloak is sacrificed for this cause. 

Then she cleans _him_. You don’t want to know how smelly he gets. Sandor doesn’t like to be smelly either, he tells Sansa this. He doesn’t want to reek of moldering boar pelt, but he does, if they don’t wash him. It’s easier if he’s hard, then he’s already unsheathed. Cold water when he’s exposed and pink makes his face scrunch up. It’s _so_ funny. He makes noises too, tangled and breathy grunts. The ridges on Sansa’s fingertips scour away whatever film collects beneath his head, the stinky stuff. This doesn’t go on her cloak. She finds a dry leaf, or strip of papery bark, and tosses it far, far away. 

She rinses out his dark curls, every other night. They get sweaty. She washes the heaviness beneath, his bollocks, also very sweaty. She plays with them because they’re soft and squishy and force moans from Sandor. “Little bird,” he says gently. “Little bird, please.” 

That’s how she knows she’s done a good job. 

It doesn't matter how much rabbit or cabbage or pomegranate they've eaten. Appetites run high when you ride, and it's time for another match. Sandor gets jealous of the saddle. He wants to put his newly clean hands where the pommel goes. There are a lot of ways to do this, Sansa learns. Tonight they're in a grassy birch glade. Tonight he insists that she's the dirty one, a ripe little bird. But birds don't get ripe. He's thinking of fruit. 

"Am not," he says to that.

Sandor pushes Sansa onto her bottom and starts to inspect her. She's a quarter of lamb and he's the butcher. Her limbs are loose as he pulls them up, one by one, to point out her stains. He lifts her arms to show the darkness beneath. He sticks his big nose there and breathes deep. "Fresh as Flea Bottom," he snarls, and Sansa whimpers. 

She tries to escape, a feint, wriggling in her seat of long grasses. Next he grapples with her skirts. His fingers hook into her mud-soaked hem: "Filthy bird." His fingers want more—they peel up her kirtle and come for her shift. No, no, her secrets are there, but it's too late. Stark starlight reveals all: puddles, dry, rimmed in lighter colors than dingy dun. They surround her flower on back and front. It’s more than what Sandor forced out today. It’s a filthy collection, one she’s confronted with every time she makes water. It isn’t proper. Ladies need a fresh shift each morning. Maids need to tend the washing. Maids need to keep their noble fruit from idling on the branches and turning ripe. 

Sansa is not a maid. She's not even a mushy pomegranate. She's a rabbit, rank, gamey. 

An easy meal. 

She makes herself easy. She lies down as Sandor advances, hitching her skirts high on her hips. Her pale legs shine like moonbeams. "Look at you," Sandor says. He spreads them, kneels between them. His palms sweep up from her shins to her thighs, catching the thin hairs that sprout from her skin. "Pretty bird." 

She would seal herself up if he wasn't so nice. If his teeth didn't glint like pointed pearls. He wants to pet her where she's both dirtiest and prettiest. Where her insides meet the outside air. She knows there are petals down there, things to unfurl, that lead to deeper caverns. Wind whispers at this hollow and tickles her sap. Fingers come next. 

Fingers don't make her less of a maiden, so she lets Sandor use them. She likes his fingers. They're thick and rough. They fill an emptiness that Sansa didn't know she had. That's where blood comes from, is all she knew before. Now she has a lover. Her lover has strong, powerful fingers that puncture her petals. They plunge into her rosy center and extract her dew. That hand gives her heat; she likes the heat. She drips. She melts. 

She whimpers. 

Her insides are exposed to the night. The dark roosts on all sides. It looms between her legs and invades her silky guts. This is not a bed. "Please," she whispers. "Don't." Sandor's fingers go away. "Why," he growls. His thumb brushes her aching bud; she writhes. "Dirty," is her excuse. You can always blame dirt. 

She doesn't expect his head to drop closer. His mouth hangs open over her maidenhair. Two hands scoop her buttocks and tip her to the sky. Spit falls. Once, twice, three times. It's how Sansa cleans Sandor's face, but he's doing it differently. He's a silly dog, she thinks. This is silly. His spit is warm and it tickles. He's a dog. He laps her stickiness up with dog kisses, a powerful tongue. "Sandor," she has to beg. "Sandor, please." 

He puts his tongue in her center. Is she dirty there, too? Sansa doesn't know what needs cleaning, but Sandor stuffs her with the word, "Good." Suddenly curious she asks, "How do I taste?" She meant to keep that in her head, but of course, Sandor has already answered her. "Is it good?" she tries instead, an equally daft question. She can't figure out what she wants to know; the truth is in Sandor's palm. 

Not the palm that presses on her right thigh. It's the one she can't see, the one buried in his breeches. His arm moves in time to his strokes. He's pleasuring himself on her sour sap. Drunk on the wine her fruit ferments. This is horrible. He's not right. 

There's another way to say this: it's wrong. 

"No more," Sansa says. Sandor unfolds entirely. She's a worm, a blade of glass, flat on the ground. He's a tree. He's a mountain. He's a dark shape and he's bigger than her. His snake is hungrier. He sticks a hand up her shift; he needs more flesh. Fine, fine. Sansa can spare this. A warm palm skirts up her belly. It swallows her breast whole. His fingers feast. 

"Little bird," he groans. 

She likes to feed him, but she doesn't like being eaten. Regardless, she doesn't move. She sucks on her bottom lip and holds handfuls of grass. She welcomes soft soil beneath her nails. She thinks she'll use them on Sandor tomorrow morning. She pictures her dirty hands on his dirty places, revenge. Because it's only Sandor's hands now. His fist slides furiously along his length. His cloudy breath drenches the sky. "Fuck," comes a horrible cloud. It's followed by a horrible spurt of warmth, directly onto Sansa's flower. She sees the unicorn on the table. She smells black blood. 

Sandor collapses on her like a landslide. Her flesh isn't enough; he needs her bones too. He wants to crush them. He churns her to dirt with each swell of his lungs. He dissolves her skin with acrid breath and kisses that boil at her scalp. She remembers he's ugly in the daylight. His face can cut like a dagger. 

Sansa envies soil. She longs to disappear, to be soaked into roots and put into a fresh flower. Her petals are poulticed. Her dew is dry. 

There are tears before she can stop them. "I don't like it," she says, but it's too late.

Nothing is left for tonight, except for Sandor, bundling Sansa up his arms and pulling her to his chest. He'll sleep, because he doesn't try to stay upright. He lays downs with her. He coils around her waist, up her spine, and presses her face to his jerkin. There's no fresh air here, only animal rot. "You're awful," she whispers to wet leather. 

A hearty snore is his reply.


	4. Quarrel in Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor and Sansa slake their thirst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all,
> 
> A warning for dubcon and PTSD flare-ups. The chapter track is [Magnetic Fields - I Shatter](https://youtu.be/vp5Ijb4anxA).
> 
> Enjoy ❤️

Sansa wakes a wolf with venom in her throat. Not true venom, but a night's worth of anger that's reduced to a bitter glue. It clings to her teeth and tongue; it breaches her lips. She reeks. The stupid snake is up too, hard on her belly, greedy for more. Sansa sticks an unfriendly paw on it, and tugs. 

She wants to hurt him, but she's not strong enough. She's only strong enough to make him pant and moan, and pet her sweet dirty head. He's not looking at her fingernails. He's not remembering right. When he explodes, Sansa catches nothing. She pushes the tip of him into his jerkin and spreads the seed over his belly like sour curd. 

Only then does Sandor notice. 

"Little bird," he says, in a soft voice that Sansa doesn't appreciate. She claws harder. She uses her already soiled fingertips to drag streaks of seed up to his chin. The next, "Little bird," is harsher. Sandor pulls himself halfway up and collects Sansa's wrists in one unforgiving fist. He shakes them. 

"What's this about?" He looks down on himself, on Sansa's fresh mess. He's ugly, rotten, big. Is that what he's seeing? 

"I don't like it." Sansa looks at the slimy worm, whose head lolls from Sandor's laces. Sandor grunts. He lets Sansa go, sews himself up, and stands. "Then stop touching me," he spits down. 

Sansa likes that even less. No touching means nowhere for her to sleep. She decides to cry while Sandor tends to Stranger. Her head really hurts. She thinks her skull might shatter. Her bones are quite delicate, and something heavy presses on her from deep inside. Sandor, maybe. His horrible thoughts have burrowed in her mind. They're weighing her down and trying to escape all at once. The unicorn was there last night. Didn't Sandor see? 

Sandor interrupts her weeping by thrusting the canteen into her face. "Drink," he says.

Sansa pushes her tears away with the heel of her palm and blinks up at him. He should have used the water to fix his stupid jerkin, but he hasn't. He's giving her the last of it instead. She sniffs and drinks. She takes every drop, and licks the rim dry. Then she glares at Sandor, head throbbing. 

"I like the saddle better," she tells him. He howls with laughter. His spit is venom too; it rains down and scalds Sansa's upturned face. 

"I like whores better," he snarls. 

Sandor snatches up the empty canteen and prowls back to his stallion, grumbling terrible curses. Sansa curls her knees to her chest and buries her head between them. She's supposed to be somewhere else. A castle, to be exact. She should be in a warm castle with a dutiful handmaid, a bowl of winter berries and cream, and a pot of herb tea. She shouldn't be stained. She shouldn't stink. 

And she especially, _especially_ , shouldn't be thinking of whores.

But she is. 

She's thinking of Sandor with his staff inside a whore, _enjoying himself_. How could that monstrous thing possibly fit inside a woman? He'd rip her in two and clear out her insides. Sansa is no maester, but she's certain. If two fingers can draw out so much blood, something the size of her forearm—

It's impossible. It's _cruel_.

"Do you hurt them?" she whispers to her knees. 

"Speak up, girl." 

"Will it hurt?" she shouts to her knees. It's more of a whine, really. 

Sandor approaches. Sansa can tell he's smirking by the way he breathes. His fingers sink into her upper arms, and he jerks her to standing. Sansa won't look up, so he stoops low. He gets his ugly face beneath hers, and bumps her nose up with his. He cuts her with his steel eyes.

"Yes," he hisses. 

Sansa frowns as hard as she can. Sandor throws her up on the saddle. She's a sack of barley all morning, slouched against his chest. She's thirsty and tired and her bones ache. She needs a comb. She needs hot stew, but they don't have a pot. She needs a lemon cake. A whole platter of lemon cakes. If Sansa had a platter of lemon cakes, she'd carry them up to her bed chamber. She'd take Jeyne along too—oh, she misses Jeyne. Jeyne does whatever Sansa says, because she's nice like that. Pliant. They'd nibble on sweets for hours. Maybe they'd even steal a goblet of wine. Wine is such fun. It makes your tummy warm. It blurs your thoughts and makes things so funny. Your head swims. There are fewer edges, more currents. 

Sansa wants wine. She doesn't tell Sandor, because she's still cross with him. He seems content to journey with his dirty sack of barley. He doesn't want to converse with a sweet lady, and quite frankly, he doesn't deserve to. He hurts whores. Sansa feels sorry for the whores. She wonders why Sandor never got in trouble with the gold cloaks for all the pain he must have inflicted. He probably threatened to hurt them too. 

Sansa wonders if the whores are barley to him. Bags to be tossed around, imposed upon, and later devoured. Whores can't be rabbits; they're already trapped. They're certainly not unicorns. 

Mostly, Sansa is glad she isn't a man. Her snakes can hide. They're long gone now. Nesting, for the winter. Part of her wants to tease Sandor—pull his hair, or prod his face, or lick his lips. These are fun games on the saddle. But her thighs are sore. Their apex aches from the constant grind of stiff leather. The friction heats up the stink of her water stains, the stink of _her_. If she smells it, Sandor smells it. That's the worst: him, knowing. 

She dozes the day away. Sansa, the girl, likes Sandor's arms, stench and all. _He cares_ , she tells herself. _But do I?_

Sansa hates the thought. She wants to help, if only a little. 

There are no streams, no people. A few sheep graze on a hillside. They look well-tended, their wool shorn and shaped, so Sandor veers onto a craggier pass. How tall is this mountain? It's a long, shallow climb. Endless, in Sansa's mind. Her head pounds. She can't see for all the smells. She sleeps. 

Dinner is yesterday's rabbit for Sandor and two pomegranates for Sansa. She spends the entire time looking at her nails. Red juice mingles with black dirt. It lines her nail beds and sinks into the ridges of her fingerprints. She starts to cry. "I'm thirsty," she whines. 

Sandor takes the half-eaten pomegranate away. He drags Sansa across pebbled, twiggy ground into his lap. Big arms close in. "I know," he says. "I know." He smears back her curls and puts two dog kisses beneath her eyes. He doesn't want her to waste water. He kisses her head. He's apologizing for something that's not his fault. He's trying to help her. Sansa doesn't want to be in a castle, not a castle that teems with lions. The wild is better. Being thirsty is better than being dead. Sandor holds Sansa's hand and sucks her fingers clean, one by one. He kisses her nails. 

When he's done, Sansa cups his scarred cheek and puts their lips together. She moves slowly. It’s time for secrets. "I like touching," she breathes. 

"I do too," Sandor breathes back. 

"I'm afraid of other things." 

"What things?" 

"The snakes." 

"There aren't any snakes, little bird." He's not lying. 

"I'm afraid of the dark," Sansa says. 

"I'm afraid of fire," Sandor replies. 

"Do you think you're ugly?" she asks. 

"I know I am," he replies. 

"I'm sorry," Sansa tells his lips. She apologizes because it is her fault. She's done kissing; their mouths are simply together. Their noses join, their foreheads too. They're holding each other's cheeks. This is why he's taken over her thoughts: they're close. Sansa has let him in. Maybe he's a pox, like other people. Maybe she's infected. She holds the Lannister's dog like a lover. His sweat and seed fill her tummy. His face is shadow, and she's shadow too. They smell the same. "I don't know you," Sansa says. What she means is, _I was wrong_.

They wake with a start. 

Sheep bleat around them—they've descended on the rocky hillside. Behind them, there are shouts. Sandor bolts to standing. He already has his sword, drawn. Sansa turns and puts a hand to the glaring morning sun. Up a ways is the shepherd on a mule. The shouts are commands to his dogs. Steel shines in sunlight; the man notices. 

"Get up," Sandor says, but he moves Sansa's body for her. He hops on the saddle at her back, sword in hand. He drives Stranger away from the sheep at a gallop, through a rocky outcrop, and past a patch of pine trees. The shepherd disappears around a bend. His shouts fade. They're not going to fight, Seven bless, but Sandor grumbles, "We're going to find his woman." 

Sansa worries at first that he's talking of rape. The wife will be at home, without her shepherd husband, vulnerable. Then Sansa thinks harder. 

"Wine," she says aloud. 

"Aye, wine," Sandor says back. "Smart bird." 

The flock was close to home. After less than an hour of riding around a tree-lined ridge, a grassy clearing appears. Uphill sits a stone cottage fenced by sagging wooden beams. Black smoke pours from a chimney and fills the open sky. At its base: a well. Sansa has never been happier to see a modest stone circle capped in a triangle of thatch. 

Sandor guides Stranger there first. The well is closer to them than the house, shielded by a crop of short, wiry trees. It's far enough that you can watch the cottage from a safe distance. That's what Sandor tells Sansa to do: stand guard. She thinks of it as punishment, because her heart is racing, and she's terribly parched, and if anyone comes out the shabby front door she won't be any use. When she sees Sandor sweating at her side, hoisting rope with all his might, her wrath withers. Something else inside her stirs. He's strong. Very strong. 

He grabs the laden bucket not by its handle, but by its sides. He tips the whole thing into his mouth, over his mouth, down his scruffy chin, his jerkin, his breeches, to his boots. The front of him is drenched. The bucket is empty. When he looks to Sansa, he grins. She pouts even harder. 

The next bucketful is for her. Sandor sets it on the ledge of the well, and she dips her hands inside. Nothing is so perfect as this vessel of crisp, clear water. It's hers. She pushes up her sleeves and sinks up to her elbows. She sets her face at its surface. It's cold, so very cold, but clean. She opens her eyes and blows bubbles out her nose. Clean, clean, clean. She comes up, gasping for air, smiling. She scoops handfuls of water to her mouth and drinks whatever doesn't slip through her fingers. It's not nearly enough. She wants what Sandor had, only less of a mess. 

"Help," she asks, putting a hand to the bucket's wooden siding. "Go slow." 

Sandor agrees with a nod. He hefts the bucket to Sansa's lips and tips the water. She swallows once, twice, three times—that's plenty. Sansa shakes her head to get him to stop, but a wicked dog grins back. He dumps more water on her face. It cascades down her chest to her slippers. Then he lifts the entire bucket, and upends it over Sansa's head. Cold envelops her. Water slaps the rocky ground. She gasps, and Sandor laughs, a cloudless storm. 

"You're horrible," she whines.

“You’re filthy,” Sandor rasps. 

The front door of the cottage clatters open. “Who’s out there?” It’s the woman, squinting from above. Sandor goes quiet, but doesn’t stop smirking. He fishes through their saddlebags and gives Sansa an armful of pomegranates. 

“Go trade with the nice lady,” he says. “Don’t forget your manners.” 

Sandor wrings out her right plait, then the left. Sansa blinks away the water on her lashes. She tests out a smile on Sandor. He smiles back. “Good. Now go.” With a gentle shove, she plods up the hill. 

The lady of the house is grey-haired and plump. Her apron strains from the swell of her bosom, which hangs like two soft, saggy boulders. Her wrinkled hands are perched on wide hips. She doesn’t return Sansa’s smile. “What’s this about then?” she asks, sucking her teeth. She points to the pomegranates with her lips. 

“Pardon, m’lady, um—” Sansa looks back to the well, but Sandor isn’t there. Odd. “I was hoping to trade, you see. I’m on the road with my—um—father, and I have these.” She hefts the pitiful collection, six bruised fruits. “I’d like some wine.” 

The old lady laughs, and much to Sansa’s horror, her teeth are bloody with sourleaf juice. A red spray coats Sansa’s kirtle. Sansa straightens up. She’s taller and prettier. She doesn’t understand why the crone won’t simply give her what she’s asked for, and so kindly, too. 

“Please,” she tries again. “We’re thirsty.” 

The woman stops her ugly laughing to say, “No. I’ve not got any wine and certainly none for you. You run along, ugly duckling. And stay out of my well.” She sticks a gnarled finger to Sansa’s chest, gives her a mean eye, then turns to the front door. 

“You’re so _rude_ ,” Sansa whines. The old lady hoists her chin, lets out one harsh cackle, then disappears inside. Sansa picks up a pomegranate and throws it against the door. It bounces off, and rolls back to her slippers. She kicks it, then tosses all her fruit to the ground in a huff. “So rude!” she shouts. 

“Hush, girl.” 

Sandor is back, already astride Stranger. He plucks Sansa by her waist and settles her on the saddle. “But I didn’t—” 

“Hush,” Sandor warns again. He kicks Stranger forward and they’re off, through the pines and up the rocky hillside. Over the sound of galloping hoofbeats, Sansa hears something else—a clanging, metallic sound. She peers behind to the saddlebags, and gasps.

“A pot! Where did you get—” Sansa's eyes narrow. She frowns. “You _stole_.”

Sandor laughs. He laughs so hard his ribs bounce against Sansa’s backside. It’s contagious, so Sansa has no choice. She giggles, clasps a hand to her mouth, and giggles until laughter breaks free. “Sandor,” she whines. He's a terrible thief, and he's made Sansa into a thief too. But the old lady _was_ rather mean…. 

“Just you wait, little bird,” Sandor says. “That’s not even the best of it.” 

After a while of hard riding, Sandor steadies Stranger so the stallion can rest. He hops down to unbuckle one of the bags. They were beginning to look rather thin, but now they’re stuffed, lumpy with ill-gotten spoils. Sandor takes out a ceramic flagon, pressed with the image of a crowned skull. He pulls the cork with his teeth, spits it out, and drops wine down his throat. Cords of muscle dance as he swallows, swallows, and swallows some more. He comes up for air with a growl. 

“Seven hells, that’s good.”

He wipes his wine-wet lips with the back of his hand and holds the flagon up to Sansa. She accepts, and she drinks. Of course, Sansa has never had wine straight from the flagon. It’s incredibly improper. She has the fleeting urge to ask Sandor for a goblet. She’d like the pewter kind they had Winterfell, the nice dark ones inlaid with opal. But she knows exactly how many goblets they’re traveling with, so puts the ceramic rim straight to her lips. She still sips like a lady, or perhaps a little bird. She sips until her belly is warm and full. She shivers in her sodden clothes. She drinks more. Better. 

The first flagon disappears this way. Most of the second flagon fills the canteen, and the canteen comes up with Sandor back on the saddle. They ride. 

Oh, they’re both so wet. Sansa nestles her soaked back into Sandor’s soaked front. He tries to wrap his cloak around her lap, but it’s no use. He holds an arm over her hips instead. They stick together, through layers of mushy wool warmed by body heat. The best part is that Sansa gets to hold the wine. 

They take turns. First, Sansa gets a sip. Then she twists back and pushes the canteen's opening to Sandor's lips. She feeds him as much as she cares to. She makes it a surprise. Sometimes, Sandor only gets a little bit. Then he scowls and nips at Sansa's fingers. Other times, he gets a giant mouthful, so big that wine spurts from his tattered cheek and dribbles down his chin. If Sansa does that, he scowls, and he tickles. Sansa squirms and squirms. She tries to bite his fingers or reach around for his stringy black hair, so she can yank on it and make it hurt. 

Mostly, she makes more warmth. In all the morning's excitement, she's forgotten to get rid of Sandor's hardness, and her fidgeting summons it back. He's so obvious in wet breeches that Sansa can't help but laugh. "Silly snake," she giggles, trailing a finger along its length. Sandor puts a heavy wine breath on top of her head. "Little bird," he warns. 

“I like him,” Sansa says, resolute. It’s true. The sun is pretty today, and each of Stranger’s steps brings them higher into the clouds. A sweet breeze carries their scent off down the mountain; wine replaces the rest. Its bitter perfume lingers up Sansa’s nose and on her tongue. She has nothing inside of her _but_ wine. She’s sour fruit. She’s warm inside and warm where Sandor touches her. Her body is slower but lighter. Sandor’s arm keeps her from floating to the sky, though Sansa wouldn’t mind being amongst the clouds. 

_I’m a cloud to Sandor_ , she thinks. 

He borrows some of her softness on the saddle. The hand that isn’t on the reins wanders. He pets her hips, her belly, her waist. Sansa guides him to her breasts. Each one is a palmful. Sandor likes to squeeze, but he’s gentle. He pushes his thumb into her nipples to turn them into points that poke through wool. He breathes really hard when that happens. 

“Gods, little bird,” he growls. “You’re so pretty.” 

“How pretty?” she asks. 

“The prettiest." His mouth drops to her head. He takes a plait in his mouth and sucks, drinking up the remaining well water. His lips move to her neck. He kisses her there, exhales. "You're the fairest maiden there ever was." He comes for her ear next. His tongue traces its edge, then he drags its lobe between his teeth. "Fairer than the Maiden herself." 

Sansa's bud aches—no, it _roars_. She doubles over the saddle, clutching her belly. She moans. 

"What is it, sweetling?" Sandor asks. He tucks a stray curl behind her ear, and clears the sweat from her temples. His palm stays on her cheek. 

"My snakes," she says, breathless. "They're hungry." 

She feels Sandor's smile behind her. "You have snakes too, is it?" 

Sansa nods. She picks up Sandor's hand and moves it low, so his fingers curve with the pommel and rest against her bud. "There," she says. 

"Oh, little bird. Are these the scary kind?" 

"Yes," Sansa replies. "They're new." 

"New things can be scary," Sandor says, and he's right. 

Sansa's whole world is new. 

It's full of awful things—hard ground, cold, darkness, hunger. The worst is being gross and smelly. It's absolutely _awful_. Living with Sandor is the newest thing of all, but he isn't an awful thing. He's warm. His arms are cozy, and he always bundles Sansa up nice and tight in his cloak when they sleep. He works so hard to cut logs and catch rabbits. He makes fires for them. He's made so many fires, birthed flame with his bare hands, and he never asked for help. Sansa feels bad. She feels like an awful thing. 

She nestles into Sandor. She likes how big he is. Flowers like the sun. He glows at her back, and she glows against his hand. She wants to give him more. She wants to give him every drop of dew, every petal. _Everything_. Sansa decides to start with wine, but when she shakes the canteen, only a few droplets rattle against the leather lining. "We need more," she says, pouting. 

Sandor laughs in reply but kicks Stranger to a halt. He drops from the saddle, then collects Sansa. She nearly topples as soon as Sandor's hands leave her waist, but she grabs his cloak to regain her footing. "Easy, little bird," he says. "Easy." 

She doesn't let him go. She clutches at his forearm while he pulls out the next flagon. He drinks first, of course. Then he serves Sansa. He doesn't want to waste wine, so he tips slowly. When a little bit trickles down her chin, he catches it with his tongue. He licks her face all over, then sticks his tongue past her lips. He's trying to steal more wine. Sansa steps close. Her hands perch on the flagon between them. She leans into Sandor's kiss. She sees just how far his tongue can reach. His strokes are sloppy and wild, open-mouthed. He forgets himself when he’s hungry. 

In a moment of weakness, his hold of the flagon loosens just-so. 

Sansa coils her arms around it, and she flees. She darts up the mountainside. 

"Little bird," Sandor calls from behind. 

Sansa glances back. Oh, he looks so angry, she simply has to laugh. "Catch me," she calls over her shoulder. Her slippered feet work over a gravel path, studded with rocks and scraggly shrubs. It's steeper here; her head hums. Her heart sings loudly along. But she keeps going. She's going to become a cloud. She can see where the mountain meets the sky. 

Her legs and lungs burn, but she pushes up, and up, and up. She's there, she's reached the edge of the world. But as she hops up one final rocky step, her foot catches on a dead tree root. She flails in midair. The wine flies. A strong hand clasps her shoulder; another shoots out to catch the flagon. "I've got you, little bird." 

Sansa swallows down her heart. Her face hovers inches from a sheet of rock that stretches across the mountaintop. She puts her hands out, and lowers herself belly-first to the pebbly ground. Sandor comes with her. He settles his knees on either side of her hips. The heat of his manhood presses against her backside. He hoists up the flagon, and drinks well. Then he drops his face, grabs Sansa's jaw, and pulls it down. When their lips meet, he empties his mouthful of wine. Sansa doesn't lose a single drop. 

"Thank you," she says into his mouth.

He eats her words with a kiss, then another kiss, and then their lips don't leave. They haven’t kissed like this before. Both their mouths gape. Their tongues land wherever they can, on teeth, or lips, or the insides of the other's cheeks. Their noses mash together. Their teeth clatter. Sandor rests on his elbows with Sansa's face in his hands, twisted to the side. She realizes she's trapped, her neck halfway to wrung. She mewls. 

Sandor switches to dog kisses. He licks her chin and her nose and her cheeks. His hardness grinds into her buttocks, and he straightens. He unlaces. He wrenches Sansa's skirt over knees, over her thighs, until her bare bottom is out for all the world. The snake settles between her folds, slithers. Sansa is frightened. He’s hot on her flower, burning her up. She can’t bear to look, but when she closes her eyes, a banquet table unfolds before her. Plates of black meat crawl with flies. 

The bloody unicorn looks her directly in the eye. 

_No._

She wriggles beneath Sandor, but he's too heavy. He sticks a palm to her cheek to keep her face down, and she squirms even more. "I can see it," she whines. 

“See what?” he rasps. 

“The unicorn,” she says, her voice splintering. Tears line her lashes. 

“There’s no unicorn,” Sandor grunts. 

“Let me up, please,” she wails. “The unicorn. It’s right here, the unicorn.” 

Sandor sighs loud enough to bring down the mountain. He flips Sansa over. He pushes her thighs apart and sits between. Her eyes are wide open, but she’s still on the table. She can’t blink it away. Tears fall. Sandor is too bright in the sun. His black hair glistens. His scars are wet and they shine. His face warps in a way that makes Sansa’s heart writhe. It’s scary. 

“Little bird,” he says, too softly. “You don’t have to look.” 

“Am I the unicorn?” she whispers. 

“No,” Sandor replies. He puts a warm hand on her cheek. “You’re my little bird.” 

Sandor is sweaty. Water slips down his good check, and he mops it up with his sleeve. His brow stays contorted. He scours Sansa's face with rough wool, though it only serves to spread her tears around. He starts to beg. "Please, little bird. Please." He lands with his forearms cradling her head. He kisses her crown. His chest rises and falls against her nose. He's nice; he's been so nice. Sansa thinks of the fires. She thinks of the night an ember landed on his hand and he yelled. She remembers she's seen that same scary look on his face. It's how he looked that night. It's how he looks when he's being burned. 

Sansa sniffs. She tries to keep her snot in, but it runs down across her cheek. She smears herself clean with her palm, then places it on Sandor's chest. "Can you do it like you did at the table?" she whispers. His next inhale pushes against her hand back against her cheek. He lets it go. 

"Aye," he says. "I can do that." 

He glides between her petals. Sansa bites her lower lip to keep it still. She reaches her free hand up to find Sandor's face. She wants the darker half, the naked half. His scars fill her palm. This is better, almost pleasant. Tiny rocks dig into Sansa's spine and shoulder blades. Kennel stench plumes from Sandor's armpits. But it's familiar. Sansa peers down. He's big, and that's familiar too. She knows this snake, her favorite snake. He's meeting hers, teasing her bud with heaviness and heat. Sansa relaxes into him. 

"Good," Sandor says, his voice thick. 

"Good," Sansa replies. "You're being very gentle." 

"I can be gentle." A few kisses fall onto her forehead. "I'll be so gentle, little bird." 

Dogs don't lie. But Sansa doesn't think she's being bedded by a dog. She isn't truly being bedded, first of all. She's on the ground. And Sandor isn't really a dog. Dogs breed in a horrible way that Sansa saw once in Winterfell and hated. Arya made her look. 

No, Sandor is chivalrous. He came to Sansa's rescue when she needed him most. He's her knight. _Ser Sandor_. And Sansa is a little bird. She's small and scared. She's confused, too. She's been confusing scary with scared for so long. She's flame to Sandor, he told her so. She hurts him. Sansa pulls his bad cheek down so their noses line up together. Her eyes shine in his. She smiles. "I like it," she says. 

Sandor's brow scrunches. He groans. Seed shoots up into her maidenhair and across her belly. His lips fall to hers. 

"I like it too," he whispers back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now what possible shenanigans will these two get into next? 
> 
> 'Til then.


	5. Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa and Sandor get clean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy,
> 
> So here we are. Look at us. Who would've thought. This chapter might be out of left field; this might what I've been building to this entire time. I was feeling soft this week and this is what happens. I wanna warn for dubcon again - Sansa is underage. The age gap will jump out. Proceed how you will. Pair this chapter with [ Kacey Musgrave's Love Is A Wild Thing](https://youtu.be/iwrxzuD2zsc) for a good time. 
> 
> Enjoy 💘

Sandor tries to smear away his seed with a rough palm, but only mashes it deeper into Sansa's small bed of maidenhair. When he notices her frowning down on him, he barks a laugh. They both know full well what happens to seed when it dries, and it isn't pretty. 

"Let's get on," Sandor says. "We'll find you some water. Make you a clean bird and a pretty bird." 

He helps Sansa to standing. There's a lot of pruning required to keep a maiden pretty. Sandor is no handmaid, but he does the best he can. He smooths out her skirts, plucks dry needles from her hair, and puts her plaits down over her shoulders. He runs his knuckles across her reddened cheek, still puffy from her tears. Sansa isn't sad anymore, or scared, but her heart aches. It aches worse when she looks up to Sandor. He turns away. 

He moves like he'll leave Sansa behind, but thrusts a hand backwards. "Come," he bids, without sparing her a glance. Of course Sansa takes his hand. He tugs her down the rocky trail until they find Stranger. Sandor lifts Sansa into the saddle, gives his stallion a nice long kiss on the muzzle, then swings up at her back. They settle close, and they ride. 

Going down the mountain is nice. Stranger is fast. A crisp breeze ripples through their cloaks and cools the flush from Sansa's skin. She can see the sun descend from up so high. It's a giant orange circle that looms over the tangled black treeline. Lavender sky fills in the rest. Sansa sighs.

"What's the matter?" Sandor asks. 

"I miss home," she replies, somber. "I miss Winterfell." 

"I know, little bird. But you understand why I can't take you north?" 

Sansa sighs again, loudly, so Sandor knows what pain he's causing her. But she answers, "I understand. We're following after my father. We're going to Starfall." 

"That's right." Sandor presses his lips to the top of her head. It's what he does when he wants her to know that she's a smart bird. "I'm going to keep you in one piece." 

Sansa believes him. He's kept in her one piece for a very long time, even when he was being mean. Sansa has spent a lot of time thinking about why someone would be so mean. She decides that Gregor must have taught him. Before Sandor was burned, he kissed village girls and had a mother. After, he had only his father and brother. He could hardly learn his courtesies. He needs a much more gentle teacher. 

Sansa sets her hands over his on the reins. They look almost silly, a third his size and white as snow. Her fingertips barely curl over the back of his weathered palm. But small things and big things can belong together. You can't have gentleness without strength to protect it. Sandor is the strength. He's a curtain wall, and Sansa is a string of pearls, stowed safely in a vault. She hasn't been home in years, and it might be many more years before she returns north. For now, her castle travels with her. It's enough. 

They don't find water all evening. In the final wisps of dusky light, they set a meager camp. Sandor hacks at a fallen trunk, chopping it to serviceable logs. Meanwhile, Sansa offers to collect dry leaves and needles; she's very good at it. She doesn't roam far, and comes back with a whole armful. Sandor turns it to smoke, then ember, then flame. He doesn't have a rabbit to roast. Sansa sits by the fire to rid the damp from her clothes while Sandor brings out the rest of his stolen goods: soft brown bread, dried pork, dried apricots, and a whole flagon of wine. 

Sansa likes the wine best. This time, Sandor is in control of it. He pours as much as likes into Sansa's mouth. He tells her good birds swallow, so she finishes every drop. She even sticks her tongue out afterwards so Sandor can see. If she does that, he'll tell her again: "Good little bird." 

The night is warm. Not the air—but everything else. Sansa's bud throbs. It commands her forward, until she nestles between Sandor's legs. Fire lapses at her back like a second cloak. Sandor heats her front. He feeds her little bites of bread and apricot. He eats most of the pork himself. Once, he chews a huge mouthful, and pries down Sansa's jaw so he can spit half his mushy mess inside her mouth. It's gross, but she has to swallow. It makes Sandor smile and laugh his warmest laugh. Then he starts to kiss her. 

He's a silly kisser. Sansa used to think that kisses were like storybooks, lips pressed to lips. She had practiced with Jeyne, just once. But Sansa is smarter now. Lovers kiss however they like, even if it's like wild dogs. Sandor's tongue is wet and tastes like wine. He cleans Sansa's face with it, since they haven't any water.

He brings her in closer; he's quite thirsty. He licks her cheeks and chin and neck. He licks down to her collarbones, and nips at her shoulders. Sansa's bud is hot as flame. She pushes Sandor's hand down over her maidenhair to show him. "It's on fire," she tells him, and he laughs. 

Still, he draws her into his lap. His hand ventures beneath her skirts and gently parts her petals. Her pulse flares. She gropes for Sandor's chest, but her hand lands on his neck. She slides it up to lock it in the hair behind his ear. She's ready. Sandor trails a finger past her bud and winds around her dewy center.

"Oh, little bird," he growls. 

"What?" Sansa peeps.

"You're sopping wet."

Sansa squeezes her eyes shut and clenches her thighs around Sandor's wrist. "I'm sorry," she whispers. She hates being a mess. 

"No," Sandor comes back. "No, it's good, little bird. If it feels good. Does it feel good?" 

Sansa nods. The nod earns her a lot more warmth. She's known Sandor's hands for a while. She's watched them do so many things—hunt, chop, ride. She likes them best on her. Her cheek especially, but she's learning to like his hand on her flower. He's not invading; he's helping. He's the sun. First he circles her bud, then he dips a finger inside. He goes slowly. He waits for Sansa to settle on it, then he moves. He doesn't take it out—he pushes it _up_. He knows something about Sansa's insides that she doesn't. There's another ache up there, another fire to stoke. 

"Good?" he asks. 

"Good," she replies. "Just like that, please." 

Sandor doesn't entirely listen. He sets his thumb on her bud while he tends to her center, but this is good too. Better than the saddle even. Sansa holds his hair tight; she's worried she'll rise up past the trees, into the stars. When she whimpers, Sandor says nice things. She's a good bird, a sweet bird, a very pretty bird. He kisses his favorite spot on her head. 

"Sandor," she mewls. 

"What is it, sweetling?" 

"I'm going to—going to—" 

One final press into her secret spot, and Sansa bursts. Her wetness swirls and simmers around Sandor's finger. It's molten earth, the fiery rivers of Valyria. She worries she's burned him, but he doesn't yell. He breathes thick wine breath down on her. When he takes away his hand, it glistens in the moonlight. A mess, but Sandor tidies up. He licks himself clean, swipes another fingerful of dew, and drinks some more. 

"How do I taste?" Sansa asks. She has a guess, but she wants to hear Sandor say it. He bundles her up in his arms and drops his bad cheek to the top of her head. 

"Sweet," he says softly. "You taste so sweet." 

Sansa curls up against Sandor's chest, her makeshift pillow in her makeshift bed. She's safe in her chamber. She only remembers she hasn't tended Sandor's staff when her head is heavy with sleep, and she's too warm to lift a finger. She doesn't lift a finger. She sleeps soundly. 

She wakes early. Her belly hurts. Sandor snores, reclined against his chosen trunk. The sky is dark above and paler on the horizon; the sun is creeping up. There's enough light for her to brave the wild, and she must. Sandor rouses as soon she wriggles from his arms and up onto her feet. His brow furrows. He doesn't like for her to wander. 

She sets a hand to her belly, so he knows. He gives a drowsy nod and waves her along.

Finding a spot is the worst. Sansa is never certain how far to go. It's hard to decide because the wine is sharp inside her, like a nest of daggers. She stumbles through gnarled pines footed by evergreen bushes, clutching herself. But another few paces, she can't hold it any longer. She manages to gather her skirts just as her water spurts and streams into the leafy ground. She'd rather not see it, so she looks up. 

She gasps. 

There's a puddle of moonlight before her—a shiny white saucer, sunk into the ground. Perhaps a star fell to earth. A thick column of steam billows from its surface into the heavens. Sansa drops her skirts and tiptoes towards it. The saucer is wide as a bedchamber. Pines shield three quarters of it; the remaining side opens up to a mist-laden valley of blue grasses below. Smooth stones shimmer like a circle of stars around the moon. Sansa inches closer and closer, cautious so as not to get burned up in its glow. 

She squats at its edge and puts a finger beneath the steam. She shouts. Or rather, she moans. It's warm water. It's the promise of a half moon's worth of filthiness soon to be purged. The puddle is a pool, hot on its own. It's Winterfell, the godswood. 

It's a bath. 

Sansa wants to cry, and she does. She drops to her knees, splashes away her tears, and cries some more. She longs to plunge inside, but something is missing—Sandor. When she hops to her feet and turns to retrieve him, she slams straight into his chest.

"Careful, little bird," he says, prying her away by her shoulders. "What's with all the peeping?"

"Water," she whispers. She glances to the pool. "It's warm." 

When she looks back up to Sandor, white moonlight shines in his eyes. He grins. He picks up Sansa's chin and brushes her lower lip with his thumb. "Oh, little bird," he says. "I could eat you up. But I think I'll have a bath first." 

He stalks past her, but Sansa catches his wrist. "Wait for me," she whines. Her grip on him is useless. Sandor tows Sansa along to the water's edge. He casts off his sword belt, and begins to undo the lacing of his jerkin. Sansa wraps both her hands around one of his and wrenches it free.

"Ladies first," she huffs. 

She sticks up her arms expectantly and glowers at Sandor. He groans as deep as thunder, then helps. He tugs her skirts up and over her head. Sansa shivers as soon as her bare skin meets the chilly air. Her nipples pimple and turn hard. Sandor plays with them for a few seconds, making them harder and much hotter. Sansa's gooseprickles disappear. 

She steadies herself on his shoulder when he stoops to peel off her soiled hose, then her slippers. On his knees, he's level with Sansa's maidenhair, so he nuzzles it until she squirms and begs for mercy. He yields. He coils his arms around her hips, and sets his nose against her belly. Sansa pets his hair. It's tacky with grease, nearly stuck to his scalp. He likes her touch though. He makes a sweet rumbling noise, as if a dog could purr, so Sansa combs him with her fingers, gentle as she can. 

"Your turn," she says when she finishes.

Sandor unfurls, but stays on his knees so Sansa can reach him. She unlaces the sides of his jerkin, and Sandor pulls it off. The tunic comes off next, in a noxious cloud of sweat and musk. Then Sandor stands. Sansa freezes in his towering shadow, a sudden dusk. There's only one word that's suitable to describe him: big _._

Hairy might be a close second. He's a wall of contoured muscle coated in dark hair. Oh, Sansa has to touch. She uses two hands to feel his rigid abdomen, then she sweeps them up to his chest. He has more than a handful there. Swollen muscle fills out her fingers and then some. The only shirtless man she's ever been this close to is father. But Sandor is bigger. And he makes her blood sing. 

His blood stirs too. His staff is half hard when Sansa unlaces his breeches and shrugs them over his hips. She's forgotten about his boots, so she has to kneel in the grass to get them. She's _purposefully_ forgotten about his boots. The laces are crusted in mud. The leather has practically stuck to Sandor's skin. When she tugs off the first boot, she's almost surprised his skin stays on. It might not for much longer. It's pale and smells rotten. She waves away the stinkiness, and pries off the second boot. She throws them as far away as she can, then stands. 

"Gross," she pouts. Sandor grins and scratches the dark curls around his manhood. 

"Get these off, girl," he rasps, looking down at his half-shorn breeches. 

Sansa sticks out her tongue, then strips his breeches all the way off. She flings them to the trees. She would rather burn them than ever touch them again. It's something to consider, after their bath. "Ladies first," Sandor says. He takes Sansa roughly by the elbow and lugs her to the pool. 

"Sandor," she whines. "Be nice." 

"Fine." 

Sandor lets her go, steps over the pool's stony ledge, and collapses into it back first with his arms stretched wide. The water shatters beneath his weight and erupts like a wave of liquid diamonds. Sandor emerges to spit gems and bare his fangs to Sansa. She crosses her arms. He was supposed to help her, and he knows it. He wades towards her, crouching in the shallows, and extends his hand. "Come, sweet lady. I'll play nice." 

Sansa accepts his offer, but he's tricked her. As soon as he has her hand, he drags her down to his chest, and steals her away to the pool's center. Sansa kicks and wriggles, but she can't find her footing. Slippery stones glide like butter beneath her toes, then disappear. Warm water gobbles her up to the chin and jumps into her mouth as she struggles for air. The pool is deeper than she is tall. Not for Sandor, though. He stands up proud with his chest and shoulders above the misty surface, and laughs as Sansa clings nervously to his thick middle. 

"You're alright, little bird," he tells her with a hearty pat to the head. "Let's get you washed up." 

Sandor gets gentle. The water is wonderful. It envelops Sansa like a warm embrace, and Sandor is even warmer. He balances Sansa's backside on his thigh, and runs his palms over every inch of her skin. He starts with her arms and armpits. He reaches down to her toes and works his fingers between them. He scrubs the soles of her feet, her legs, and then he dips between. He washes her maidenhair first, then her flower. Then he goes too deep—his fingers sneak between the cleft of Sansa's buttocks. She squeals and claws at Sandor's chest. "Not there." 

"Why not?" he snarls back. "Have you been washing?" 

Sansa scrunches her face up and shakes her head. "No," she confesses. "But it's been"—she lowers her voice to whisper—"it's been watery." 

She expects a mean laugh, but gets a kiss on the forehead instead. "I know," Sandor says. He spreads his hand wide and lovingly squeezes a whole buttock. Then he moves to her breasts. They're new and tender. Sansa doesn't understand why Sandor likes them so much. He squishes them between his fingers. He bends down to take her nipple in his mouth, then he sucks on it. Sansa likes this—or rather, her snakes do. They come to life as Sandor's tongue traces her sensitive pink flesh. They really like when he uses his teeth. 

Then Sansa remembers: he's going to eat her up. Everyone knows the breast is the best part of a bird. "Please," she whimpers. She takes handfuls of wet black hair on either side of Sandor's face and tries to pull him away. "We have to clean you up first." 

It's a rule of Sansa's own design, to buy herself time. _Wash before you break your fast._ It's only fair. Sandor agrees with a grunt. He steps back, holding Sansa's hands to take her along with him. She glides like a swan through the still pool, until she touches down on slick stone. Sandor falls to a seat on a submerged rock and puts Sansa between his legs. 

She's never given a bath before; she's only received them. So she pretends to be a handmaid, only she realizes that she _is_ Sandor's handmaid. She has been since they started to ride. And truthfully, they're each other's handmaids. Sansa didn't know this part about being lovers—taking care of each other, taking turns. She can't remember who taught who this art. She's certainly never heard it in a song. 

No one sings of giving a grown man a bath. Sansa listens to her blood as she runs her hands over his skin. She ducks below the water to pick up his foot. She scrubs it as best she can with her palm, then retrieves the other and does the same. Thankfully, his skin stays on. She rubs his hairy calves and up to his thighs. There's a lot of thigh—it takes a few minutes. She tiptoes closer to get her hands on his torso. 

She lingers, and learns the appeal of a full chest. _Are they called breasts on a man_ , Sansa wonders. They're bigger than hers. She ends up asking it aloud, and Sandor laughs. Then he makes each of his tense and release on command. He does it over and over, because Sansa begs. She giggles each time, and pets the dark hair on top of them so nicely in return. She even tries licking his nipples, and Sandor growls. He sticks his hands behind Sansa's knees and hauls her up so she straddles him. 

He's big up close. He's big all around her. Sansa is small, and he's a big hound. But he's not scary, and she's not scared. They're both safe. 

Sansa keeps cleaning him. She splashes water into his armpits and scrubs, hard. He's so hairy there and so stinky that the skunk smell clings to her fingertips. She longs for soap. She tries wiping her fingers clean on Sandor's abdomen. He grumbles, but it suffices. Then it's time to wash _him_. Sansa is especially gentle as she combs through his curls and around his bollocks. She touches him everywhere he's soft first. His staff is hard between them, his pulse alive inside of it. Still, Sansa doesn't touch. She looks. 

His reddened head barely breaks the water's surface. The pool has turned purple and pink in the light of dawn. _He's the sunrise_ , Sansa thinks, and she giggles. She always helps Sandor in the morning, but today, this morning, is special.

A bath isn't a bed. Sandor isn't her lord husband. But Sansa is in warm water to her waist, her knees cradled by soft stone. She's clean. Perhaps that's the most important thing. 

She takes in a full, steamy breath to soothe her fluttering heart. "Can you help with my plaits?" she asks, sweet as lemon cake. Sandor nods, and his fingers come for her ribbons, white silk turned grey from travel. He's clumsy with them, but they fall into the pool and float away. He slowly rakes through her curls, until they're all free, and bounce down to meet the water. Sansa holds him at the elbows and leans back. She shimmies her hair loose, feels it spread wide like raw silk. She smiles, and pulls up.

"Pretty," Sandor breathes. He watches her with sparkling, low-lidded eyes. 

"You can touch it," Sansa says. "If you like." 

Sandor does. He collects her hair in one large handful and brings it to his face, to the scarred side of him. He rests there, shuts his eyes, and breathes. Sansa is ready, except for one thing. It's the only thing that makes Sandor different from Winterfell. 

"Sandor," she starts. She dips a hand into the water and runs a finger along his length. She collects another calming breath, releases. She's too shy to look up. "Are we lovers?" 

Sandor straightens. He arranges Sansa's hair behind her shoulders, sweetly tucking in any loose strands. "Would you like that?" he asks in return.

"I want to be loved," she sighs. She swirls her finger around his tip so that it bobs back and forth across the pool's surface. Sandor's breath gets heavier like usual, but otherwise he stays awfully quiet. So Sansa closes a fist around him, and squeezes. 

"We can be lovers," he groans. "You're loved." 

It's not quite what Sansa is looking for. She takes her hand away. 

"I love you, little bird." 

Sansa's eyes fly up. Her heart swells. "I knew it," she says, beaming. She sticks a finger to Sandor's chest, where she thinks his heart must be. His heart that's full of love for her, no longer bitter and black. "I simply knew it. You take _such_ good care of me." 

Sandor's lips twitch. "I try," is all he says. 

He doesn't want to smile, because he's hungry. Famished, even. Sansa understands. "I'm ready," she tells him, with a pointed look downward. The snake lurches its approval. Beneath her fingertip, Sandor's heart hammers. "You're ready," he breathes back. "I'm ready," she says again. 

"Here," Sandor says. He picks up her by the thighs and slides her forward so her breasts meet his bare chest. "Put your legs around me, and hold on tight. Can you do that?" Sansa is very good at holding on tight. She curls her legs behind Sandor's back and crosses her ankles, ladylike. Her arms wrap around his head, and she buries her face in the crook of his neck. There's a perfect hollow here for her to rest in. 

"Be so gentle," she whispers. 

Sandor's arms slip beneath her thighs; his hands cup her buttocks. He raises her up as if she weighs no more than a moonbloom. He lines the tip of him at her rosy center. It spreads her petals, presses on her. He's warm, wide. "Ready," he says once more, then he lowers her. 

Sansa winces—it hurts. His staff rips her delicate flora; it's bigger than her insides. She knows this, and Sandor does too. He says it aloud. "I know, little bird. I know." But he goes deeper. There's so much of him. It fills Sansa, stretches and burns her like ore ablaze. Her fires pale in comparison. Her fire is swallowed up in his. "Sandor," she mewls. "Almost there, sweetling," he grunts. 

He forces his way to her womb. It aches at her end. She's split down the middle with a heavy column of heat; she's bursting. Her thighs quiver, and tears stream from the corners of her eyes. This must be her end. This is as far as a man's staff is ever supposed to go. Her maidenhair rests against the curls at his base. Her bud throbs just above. "My tummy hurts," she whispers into his skin. His arms sweep up from her legs to her back. He crosses them, locks his hands down on her shoulders. The gates are drawn. "I know," he replies. 

"You're big," she says. The rod inside her flares and expands against flesh already pulled taut. Sansa whimpers. "I can feel your heartbeat." He pulses again, groans. "Little bird," he growls, so low and gentle it's almost a hymn. "You're so small." 

"Do you like it?" she whispers. 

The snake does, his heart does. He's proving his own power, and her frailty. He feasts. "Yes," Sandor says. The word pushes through tight teeth and lands atop her head. He's so hot inside her that Sansa wonders if he won't burn himself. "Tell me," she urges. "Tell me nice things." 

"You're pretty," he says with a kiss to her head. "You're smart," he says, and he kisses her again. "And you're brave, little bird. So very brave." 

Sansa peers up from her hiding place. "I am?" she asks, her lower lip full and drooping. 

"Of course, little bird," he says softly. His fingers move from her shoulders to cradle her neck. "The Keep was no place for a girl as gentle as you. You shouldn't have been held there. You shouldn't have endured what you did. The boy king is cruel. His mother crueler. No, you're the bravest little bird I've ever met." 

Sandor seems suddenly much prettier to Sansa. His eyes shine. They're filled with her—her pale skin, her blue eyes, and her darkened auburn hair. The soft pink dawn dulls his lines that could cut. They only look sharp if you're worried they'll draw blood. If you aren't afraid, and Sansa isn't, they're a new beauty. An unforgiving beauty, like the jagged face of a mountain. The only ugly mountain is Sandor's brother. The rest are sharp and rough, bristly, steep, and ofttimes treacherous. You have to welcome those parts. When taken at a distance, from high in the sky, as a bird from above, there is only the extraordinary, the wonder of something that is unfathomably large, and more so precious. 

Sansa cups Sandor's blackened cheek in her palm, snow on the mountainside. Her heart climbs high into her throat. "The worst part of all," she tells him in a choked whisper, "is that I was lonely."

Sandor's eyes fall shut. His brow wrinkles. He has something in his throat too, it surges and he swallows it down. "I was too," he confesses. 

The steam makes him sweat; a drop of water descends from his lashes. Sansa holds his other cheek to wipe it away. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asks. She brings her nose to rest on his. "We could have been friends. I'm such good company." 

"You are," Sandor says. 

"But you were so mean." 

"I know." 

"Why?" 

"I was afraid." 

"Sandor," she hums. "I'm not scary. You can look. I'm not scared." 

When he opens up, Sansa learns where the water has come from. His eyes are wet stars that gleam bright. Sansa swims in them. "Do you want to be loved, too?" she asks. He gives a slight nod. So Sansa tells him, "I love you," and she kisses him. "I love you," she says again, into his mouth, so he won't forget. "I love you, and I'm not afraid. You're not ugly. You're not scary." 

"Tell me," he pleads. It's Sansa's turn. 

"I like how you care for me," she starts. "I like when you hold me at night, and put kisses on my head. I like the way you kiss me. I don't mind if our kisses are nonsense. I like how gently you lift me to the saddle. I like how you feel at my back when we ride. I even like it when you tease me, but that's a secret. I like when you're nice better. And I really like how handsome you are." 

"I'm not," he says. 

Sansa tenderly shakes his face. "But you are. I've been watching you. You're _big_. I like all your muscles. I like how strong you are. You're old, but father was old, and I loved him too. It makes you wiser. And your face—" she moves her lips across his stubbled cheek, up his brow, to his forehead. "It frightened me when I didn't understand. It's new. It—it excites me, truly. It makes my heart ache, because it's so special. It's dear to me." Her mouth crosses to his scars, his darker half. "I'm not afraid of your burns, either. Only a little bit. I'm afraid they hurt." 

"You don't hurt them," Sandor gets out, hushed. "You make it better." 

"I knew it," Sansa says. She plants as many kisses on his charred skin as she can. She spreads them over his cheek to his chin, then up his jawline. She lingers at his small patch of bone, and sets a dozen bird kisses there. "Will you remember to be nice? Will you promise?" 

"I promise, little bird." 

"I promise too," she replies.

Sansa collapses back to his chest, where she belongs. She wraps her arms around his neck and hugs him tight. "I love you," she tells him again, to try it out. They're pretty words, words that sound the way yesterday afternoon felt. High noon sun, wine in her tummy, wool stuck on her skin, wet but clean, warm. Warm as Sandor's best laugh. He isn't laughing now, though. He breathes slow and hard, hotter than the steam that curls from the water's surface. 

Sansa shifts on her seat. She almost forgot where she is—lanced on a man's staff. How silly of her. Her belly is one achy stew. It bulges out and sticks to Sandor's belly. At least she's in the water, in case he's drawn blood. In case her insides are spilling out and bubbling to the sky. 

"Sandor?" she asks. 

"What is it?" 

"I think I'm done." 

"You're done," Sandor echoes. He adjusts, and his staff delves deeper. He's on fire, or she is. He gives her the heat of the earth's molten core. Sansa winces. "Did you put your seed in me?" she asks. Surely that's what he's working on up there. There's nothing left for him to do but fill her. That's how this ends. 

But maybe Sandor doesn't know that part, because he asks, "Should I?" 

Sansa nods, swirling the hair on his chest with her damp, flushed cheek. "We're in love, so we can have a baby." She feels Sandor swallow something down again. His heart might be attempting escape like hers. It thrums wildly at Sansa's ear. "Did you learn that in a song?" he asks. His voice shakes like he's treading water, even though he's far above the surface. He sets an unsteady hand over her head and strokes her wet hair. Sansa nods into his palm. 

"Alright," he says. "But I'll need to move again." 

"You can move, but just once." 

"Just once. I can do that. Are you ready, little bird?" 

"I'm ready," she replies. "I'll be brave." 

Sandor takes in a whole big breath of her. His arm scoops her buttocks. He slides Sansa up to his tip, and brings her gently down. At the bottom, he bursts. He releases the ire of the Fourteen Flames. It rushes hot to Sansa's center, swells inside her womb. She smiles—there won't be any mess. She can bear the burden of flame. She lifts her face from Sandor's chest and puts her upturned lips to his singed ear. 

"I have another secret," she whispers. 

"Tell me," Sandor says, breathless. 

"The song I told you about"—Sansa giggles; it's so silly—"I made it up. My heart did." 

Strong arms enclose her. Sandor is a man, or a wall, or a mountain, or the sun in the dawn sky. Sansa is a little bird, afloat and tethered at once. She's home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love is a wild thing ? ??? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this very elaborate foreplay for Sansa's deflowering. If you want to read pregnant bandit Sansa, you're gonna have to wait until GRRM gives us the lowdown on what happened at Starfall. 'Til then I'll be working on Another Nova. Coming soon! 😸


End file.
